Regulating Commercial Banking

The Reserve Bank of India had, on October 1 2025, issued seven draft Directions on Transaction Accounts, viz., (i) Reserve Bank of India (Commercial Banks – Transaction Accounts) Directions, 2025; (ii) Reserve Bank of India (Small Finance Banks – Transaction Accounts) Directions, 2025; (iii) Reserve Bank of India (Payments Banks – Transaction Accounts) Directions, 2025; (iv) Reserve Bank of India (Local Area Banks – Transaction Accounts) Directions, 2025; (v) Reserve Bank of India (Regional Rural Banks – Transaction Accounts) Directions, 2025; (vi) Reserve Bank of India (Urban Co-operative Banks – Transaction Accounts) Directions, 2025; and (vii) Reserve Bank of India (Rural Co-operative Banks – Transaction Accounts) Directions, 2025 seeking feedback from stakeholders. The draft directions were aimed primarily at rationalising the extant provisions to provide greater flexibility to banks for opening and maintaining cash credit accounts, current accounts and overdraft accounts.

The Governor, Reserve Bank of India, met the Managing Directors and Chief Executive Officers of Public Sector Banks and select Private Sector Banks in Mumbai today (December 9, 2025). These interactions form part of the Reserve Bank’s ongoing engagement with the senior management of regulated entities; the previous such meeting was held on January 27, 2025. The meetings were also attended by Deputy Governors Shri T Rabi Sankar, Shri Swaminathan J, Dr. Poonam Gupta and Shri S C Murmu, along with the Executive Directors-in-Charge of Supervision, Regulation, Enforcement, and Consumer Education and Financial Inclusion.

The Reserve Bank has today granted ‘in-principle’ approval to Fino Payments Bank Limited (FPBL) for conversion into a Small Finance Bank (SFB). Background RBI has issued the Guidelines for ‘on tap’ licensing of SFBs in the private sector (the guidelines). As per the guidelines, existing Payments Banks which are controlled by residents and have completed five years of operations are eligible for conversion into SFBs. The application of FPBL was assessed as per the procedure laid down in the guidelines.

The Reserve Bank of India had issued draft circular on ‘Forms of Business and Prudential Regulation for Investments’ on October 04, 2024, seeking feedback from banks and other stakeholders. The objective of the draft circular was to review regulations on ringfencing of banks’ core business from other risk bearing non-core businesses as also to provide level playing field.

The Reserve Bank of India has, from time to time, issued several instructions/ guidelines to co-operative banks, i.e., Primary (Urban) Co-operative Banks (UCBs), State Co-operative banks (StCBs) and District Central Co-operative banks (DCCBs), related to permission for place of business, change of name and scheduling. With a view to harmonising the above instructions/ guidelines and consolidating them in one place, Draft Master Direction (MD) on Business Authorization for Co-operative Banks (Directions), 2025 was issued on July 28, 2025 seeking feedback from banks and other stakeholders.

Extant guidelines stipulate submission of credit information by Credit Institutions (CIs) to Credit Information Companies (CICs) at fortnightly or shorter intervals. Given the increasing reliance of CIs on credit information reports (CIRs) in credit underwriting processes, it is imperative that the CIRs provided by CICs reflect more recent information. Upon review, it was proposed to amend the extant instructions and transition to weekly incremental submission of credit information by CIs to CICs along with measures to facilitate faster data submission and error rectification. Accordingly, the Reserve Bank had issued Draft Reserve Bank of India (Credit Information Reporting) (1st Amendment) Directions, 2025, on September 29, 2025, inviting public comments / feedback.

The Basic Savings Bank Deposit (BSBD) account was introduced as a savings bank account which offers certain minimum facilities, free of charge, to the holders of such accounts with an objective of deepening financial inclusion. Access to financial services has improved significantly in recent years. However, the ongoing digitalisation of the banking sector requires a BSBD account that is in sync with the customer’s evolving requirements. Accordingly, it was decided to review the extant instructions and draft Reserve Bank of India (Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account) Directions, 2025 were issued on October 1, 2025 for public consultation / feedback.

State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank continue to be identified as Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs) under the same bucketing structure as in the 2024 list of D-SIBs. The additional Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) requirement for these D-SIBs will be in addition to the Capital Conservation Buffer. The list of D-SIBs is as follows:

Analysis of the performance under the Citizen’s Charter during the month of November 2025 has been carried out, and the summary thereof is given below –

(Amount in ₹ crore) SCHEDULED COMMERCIAL BANKS (Including RRBs,SFBs and PBs) ALL SCHEDULED BANKS 15-Nov-2024 31-Oct-2025* 14-Nov-2025* 15-Nov-2024 31-Oct-2025* 14-Nov-2025* I LIABILITIES TO THE BKG.SYSTEM (A) a) Demand & Time deposits from banks 286037.41 324591.97 350944.60 291221.79 331728.86 357866.58** b) Borrowings from banks 135263.61 85106.05 81533.54 135338.08 85106.05 81560.54 c) Other demand & time liabilities 24650.32 27465.23 26997.34 25006.84 27925.58 27514.50