Calcutta, Nov 25: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has stipulated a minimum credit rating for non-banking finance companies without which they will not be allowed to collect deposits from the public.

Going by the RBI directive, NBFCs must acquire one of the four following ratings: FA- (if rated by Crisil) or MA- (Icra) or BBB (Care) or BBB- (Duff & Phelps) to be eligible to access public deposits.

The ratings denote adequate-to-moderate safety and belong to the investment grade. The negative or positive markings reflect the comparative standing within a particular category.

These ratings are laid down in the manual for on-site inspection of NBFCs drawn up by the RBI.

The apex bank will also use the ratings to grade the companies into four categories. Each rating will be assigned a weightage: the highest getting a weightage of 15 points, adequate safety will get a weightage of nine points and so on.

The other parameters which go into the grading system are the following: