Check whether it is a bank or a society

One question decides whether the money an agent collects from you is insured. Everything else on this page exists to answer it properly rather than approximately.

The one question

Does this institution hold a banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India?

If yes, deposits are insured to ₹5,00,000 per depositor, principal and interest together. If no, they are not insured at all, however the account looks. The DICGC states it plainly: "Primary cooperative societies are not insured by the DICGC."

The eight checks

1. Ask for the banking licence, not the registration. These are different documents from different authorities. A registration certificate from a Registrar of Co-operative Societies is not a banking licence and does not bring deposit insurance with it.

2. Get the number, and verify it with the issuer. A photocopy at the door proves nothing. The DICGC publishes a list of insured banks; there were 1,982 on its register at 31 March 2025. Your institution should be on it.

3. Look for the DICGC logo, then check it anyway. Insured banks commonly display it. Display is not proof, and its absence is not proof either. Treat it as a prompt to verify, not as the answer.

4. Ask what type of institution it is, in exact words. Urban co-operative bank, district central co-operative bank and state co-operative bank are banks. Credit society, patpedhi, Souharda co-operative and Primary Agricultural Credit Society are societies. A Nidhi company is neither. Our guide to the co-operative credit structure explains why the tier does not track the protection.

5. Ignore the trading name. "Co-operative" appears in insured and uninsured institutions alike, and predicts nothing.

6. Ignore the equipment. A printed receipt, a handheld machine, an SMS confirmation and a passbook are available to anyone who buys them.

7. Ask who regulates it, and expect a specific answer. A bank will say the Reserve Bank of India. A society will name a Registrar. Vagueness here is itself information.

8. If neither a licence nor a registration is produced, stop paying. Parliament passed a Bill in 2019 aimed at deposit schemes run without registration, as our guide to unregulated deposit schemes sets out. Stopping is far easier than recovering.

Reading the answer

The middle row is the one that catches people. A properly registered society has its paperwork in order with the authority that oversees it, and your money is still entirely outside deposit insurance. Finding the registration is half an answer that feels like a whole one.

What this checklist does not do

It does not tell you whether a particular institution is well run. An insured bank can still be badly managed, and cover applies if it fails rather than preventing the failure. It also does not assess the scheme's terms: for that, work through the checklist before opening an account.