Ans.: The Reserve Bank will send emails to all the eligible entities from generic email IDs of the Reserve Bank to notify them about the launch of the FCS survey for the latest reference period. Entities are required to fill in the latest survey schedule attached along with the mail and send to the generic email IDs of the Reserve Bank as per the instruction given in the survey schedule.

Ans: For the purposes of determining whether a company is a CIC, ‘companies in the group’ have been exhaustively defined in para 3 (1) (v) of   of Master Direction DoR(NBFC).PD.003/03.10.119/2016-17 dated August 25, 2016 as “an arrangement involving two or more entities related to each other through any of the following relationships: Subsidiary – parent (defined in terms of AS 21), Joint venture (defined in terms of AS 27), Associate (defined in terms of AS 23), Promoter–promotee [as provided in the SEBI (Acquisition of Shares and Takeover) Regulations, 1997] for listed companies, a related party (defined in terms of AS 18), common brand name, and investment in equity shares of 20 percent and above.” 

Ans: The PIP is conducted by the Reserve Bank half yearly to collect the required details of the reporting entities as on end-March and end-September of a FY. In general, the survey is launched for end-March and end-September position on June 01 and December 01 of that year respectively.

NBFCs are categorized (a) in terms of the type of liabilities into Deposit and Non-Deposit accepting NBFCs; (b) regulatory structure of NBFCs under Scale Based Regulation into NBFC-Base Layer, NBFC-Middle Layer, NBFC-Upper Layer, and NBFC-Top Layer (as detailed in Reserve Bank of India (Non-Banking Financial Companies – Registration, Exemptions and Framework for Scale Based Regulation) Directions, 2025); and (c) by the kind of activity they conduct.

Based on the type of activities they conduct, the different types of NBFCs are as follows:

(i) Investment and Credit Company (ICC): ICC means any company which is a financial institution carrying on as its principal business - asset finance, the providing of finance whether by making loans or advances or otherwise for any activity other than its own and the acquisition of securities; and is not any other category of NBFCs as defined by the Reserve Bank in any of its Directions.

(ii) Housing Finance Company (HFC): HFC shall mean a company that fulfils the following conditions:

1. It is an NBFC whose financial assets, in the business of providing finance for housing, constitute at least 60% of its total assets (netted off by intangible assets). Housing finance for this purpose shall mean providing finance as stated in paragraph 10(8) of the Reserve Bank of India (Housing Finance Companies) Directions, 2025.

2. Out of the total assets (netted off by intangible assets), not less than 50% should be by way of housing finance for individuals as stated at clauses (i) to (v) of Paragraph 10(8) of the aforementioned Directions for HFCs.

(iii) Infrastructure Finance Company (IFC): IFC is a non-banking finance company (a) which deploys at least 75 per cent of its total assets towards infrastructure lending.

(iv) Infrastructure Debt Fund (IDF-NBFC): IDF-NBFC means a non-deposit taking NBFC which is permitted to (a) refinance post commencement operations date (COD) infrastructure projects that have completed at least one year of satisfactory commercial operations; and (b) finance toll operate transfer (TOT) projects as the direct lender.

(v) Core Investment Company (CIC): CIC is a NBFC carrying on the business of acquisition of shares and securities which satisfies the following conditions:

1. It holds not less than 90% of its net assets in the form of investment in equity shares, preference shares, debt or loans in group companies;

2. Its investments in the equity shares (including instruments compulsorily convertible into equity shares within a period not exceeding 10 years from the date of issue) in group companies and units of Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) only as sponsor constitutes not less than 60% of its net assets;

3. Provided that the exposure of such CICs towards InvITs shall be limited to their holdings as sponsors and shall not, at any point in time, exceed the minimum holding of units and tenor prescribed in this regard by SEBI (Infrastructure Investment Trusts) Regulations, 2014, as amended from time to time. It does not trade in its investments in shares, debt or loans in group companies except through block sale for the purpose of dilution or disinvestment;

4. it does not carry on any other financial activity referred to in Section 45I(c) and 45I(f) of the RBI act, 1934 except (i) investment in bank deposits, money market instruments, government securities, bonds or debentures issued by group companies; (ii) granting of loans to group companies; and (iii) issuing of guarantees on behalf of group companies;

5. Its asset size is ₹100 crore or above; and

6. It accepts public funds

(vi) Micro Finance Institution (NBFC-MFI): “NBFC-MFI” means a non-deposit taking NBFC which has a minimum of 75 percent of its total assets deployed towards “microfinance loans” as defined under Reserve Bank of India (Non-Banking Financial Companies – Credit Facilities) Directions, 2025 as under:

1. A microfinance loan is defined as a collateral-free loan given to a household having annual household income up to ₹3,00,000. For this purpose, the household shall mean an individual family unit, i.e., husband, wife and their unmarried children.

2. All collateral-free loans, irrespective of end use and mode of application/ processing/ disbursal (either through physical or digital channels), provided to low-income households, i.e., households having annual income up to ₹3,00,000, shall be considered as microfinance loans.

3. To ensure collateral-free nature of the microfinance loan, the loan shall not be linked with a lien on the deposit account of the borrower.

4. The NBFCs shall have a board-approved policy to provide the flexibility of repayment periodicity on microfinance loans as per borrowers’ requirement.

(vii) Non-Banking Financial Company – Factors (NBFC-Factors): NBFC-Factor is a non-deposit taking NBFC engaged in the principal business of factoring. The financial assets in the factoring business should constitute at least 50 per cent of its total assets and its income derived from factoring business should not be less than 50 per cent of its gross income.

(viii) Mortgage Guarantee Companies (MGC): MGC means a company registered as mortgage guarantee company which primarily transacts the business of providing mortgage guarantee i.e., a guarantee for the repayment of an outstanding housing loan and interest accrued thereon up to the guaranteed amount to a creditor institution, on the occurrence of a trigger event. A mortgage guarantee company shall be deemed to primarily transact the business of providing mortgage guarantee when at least 90 per cent of the business turnover is mortgage guarantee business or at least 90% of the gross income is from mortgage guarantee business.

(ix) Standalone Primary Dealers (SPDs): SPDs are primarily NBFCs which have been granted authorisation to undertake the Primary Dealer activities in Government Securities. SPDs may undertake a set of core and non-core activities which are clearly defined. SPDs support G- Sec market, (both primary and secondary) through various obligations like participating in primary auctions, market making in G- Secs, predominance of investment in G-Secs, achieving minimum secondary market turnover ratio, etc.

(x) Non-Operative Financial Holding Company (NOFHC): NOFHC means a non-deposit taking NBFC referred to in the Reserve Bank of India (Non-Operative Financial Holding Companies) Directions, 2025 (Updated as on December 05, 2025), issued by the Reserve Bank, which holds the shares of a banking company and the shares of all other financial services companies in its group, whether regulated by the Reserve Bank or by any other financial regulator, to the extent permissible under the applicable regulatory prescriptions.

(xi) NBFC – Account Aggregator (NBFC-AA): NBFC-AA means a non-banking financial company as notified under in sub-clause (iii) of clause (f) of section 45-I of the RBI Act, that undertakes the business of an account aggregator, for a fee or otherwise. The “business of an account aggregator” means the business of providing under a contract, the service of, retrieving or collecting such financial information pertaining to its customer, as may be specified by the Reserve Bank from time to time; and consolidating, organizing and presenting such information to the customer or any other financial information user as may be specified by the Bank; Provided that, the financial information pertaining to the customer shall not be the property of the Account Aggregator, and not be used in any other manner.

(xii) NBFC – Peer to Peer Lending Platform (NBFC-P2P): NBFC-P2P means a non-banking institution which carries on the business of a Peer to Peer Lending Platform i.e., acting as intermediary providing the services of loan facilitation via online medium or otherwise, to the participants of the platform.

Clarification: As per extant guidelines, SMF includes individuals, SHGs, JLGs, Farmers’ Producer Companies (FPC) and Co-operatives of farmers with the accompanying criteria of membership by number and land-holding. Therefore, loans to partnership firms/co-borrowers or any director of a company holding agriculture land upto 2 hectares are not eligible to be classified under the SMF category of PSL.

Clarification: As per extant guidelines, priority sector loans are eligible for classification as loans to minority communities as per the list notified by the GoI from time to time. The same may be read with Master Circular- Credit Facilities to Minority Communities which at para 2.2 states “In the case of a partnership firm, if the majority of the partners belong to one or the other of the specified minority communities, advances granted to such partnership firms may be treated as advances granted to minority communities. Further, if the majority beneficial ownership in a partnership firm belongs to the minority community, then such lending can be classified as advances to the specified communities. A company has a separate legal entity and hence advances granted to it cannot be classified as advances to the specified minority communities”

Clarification: Declaration by the customer in the application form would suffice for classifying credit facilities to Minorities/SCs/STs under Weaker Sections. However, it needs to be ensured that, the loans should first be eligible for classification under priority sector lending as per underlying activity.

Clarification: Banks may rely on a combination of auditors’ certification provided by the originating entity and conduct of sample check by their own staff or by an auditor for the purpose. This may be suitably built into their internal policy.