Consider the following statements about the Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) in India :
1. NBFCs cannot accept demand deposits.
2. All the NBFCs operating in India have to be registered with the RBI.
3. NBFCs form part of the payment and settlement system and can issue cheque drawn on itself.
4. Deposit insurance facility of Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) is not available to the depositors of deposit taking NBFCs.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?

Correct Option: (a) 1 and 4

The correct option is (a). Statements 1 and 4 are correct. Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) are statutorily prohibited from accepting demand deposits (deposits that are repayable on demand like savings or current accounts), keeping statement 1 correct. Deposit insurance facility provided by DICGC is exclusively available to commercial banks, cooperative banks, and small finance/payment banks, and is explicitly not available to depositors of deposit-taking NBFCs, keeping statement 4 correct. Statement 2 is incorrect because not all NBFCs are required to be registered with the RBI (certain categories like housing finance companies under specific norms, Nidhi companies, core investment companies under thresholds, etc., have different regulatory pathways or exemptions). Statement 3 is incorrect because NBFCs are not part of the core payment and settlement system in the same manner as banks and cannot issue cheques drawn on themselves. Therefore, options (b), (c), and (d) are incorrect.