Connect 2 Regulate

With the objective of enforcing credit discipline among borrowers as well as to facilitate better monitoring by lenders, certain restrictions were placed on the operation of Current Accounts (CA), Cash Credit Accounts (CC) and Overdraft Accounts (OD) (“Transaction Accounts”) offered by banks vide various circulars issued from time to time. Based on the experience gained and feedback received, these instructions have been reviewed and it is proposed to ease some of the stipulations and provide greater flexibility to the banks in this regard, particularly in case of borrowers being entities regulated by a financial sector regulator. Accordingly, the draft “Reserve Bank of India (Commercial Banks – Transaction Accounts) Directions, 2025” has been issued for public comments.

The Master Direction – Reserve Bank of India (Credit Information Reporting) Directions, 2025 outlines the framework for submission of credit information by credit institutions (CIs) to credit information companies (CICs), at fortnightly or shorter intervals. On a review, it is proposed to amend the extant instructions and transition to weekly incremental credit information submission by CIs to CICs along with measures to facilitate faster data submission and error rectification. Further, to facilitate aggregation of credit information by CICs, it is proposed to capture Central Know Your Customer (CKYC) number in a separate field in the reporting format of consumer segment. Accordingly, the Reserve Bank has released today, the draft Directions for public consultation.

Circulars on Large Exposures Framework (LEF) dated June 3, 2019, Large Exposures Framework – Credit Risk Mitigation (CRM) for offsetting – non-centrally cleared derivative transactions of foreign bank branches in India with their Head Office (LEF-CRM) dated September 9, 2021, and Guidelines on Management of Intra-Group Transactions and Exposures (ITE) dated February 11, 2014 prescribe prudential norms on a bank’s exposures to its counterparties as also those to its group entities.

The Gold Metal Loan (GML) scheme was introduced in 1998 to facilitate working capital finance to jewellery exporters in the form of raw gold imported by banks. The scheme has been liberalised over the years by, inter alia, allowing banks to extend GML to domestic jewellery manufacturers and also from the gold deposits mobilised under the Gold Monetization Scheme.