The Reserve Bank of India has opened an exclusive foreign exchange window for supplying dollars to state-run refiners, easing pressure on the spot exchange rate, currency analysts, bankers and traders told ET. It’s likely routed through state-run lenders such as the State Bank of India, they said.

The central bank has used this strategy previously to ease pressure on the rupee--during the socalled taper tantrum of 2013, the Russian-Ukraine war and on occasions when demand from oil companies added to pressure on the currency.

“On an average, daily dollar demand from oil companies is around $500-550 million,” said Anil Bhansali, head of treasury at Finrex Treasury Advisors.

The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday opened the door for a major expansion push by gold loan companies and other retail-focused NBFCs. The RBI issued the Non-Banking Financial Companies – Branch Authorisation Amendment Directions, 2026, allowing NBFCs to open branches without prior approval. The sector’s most branch-intensive players, particularly gold loan NBFCs, stand to benefit immediately.

New Era of Scaling
“By removing the requirement for prior approval, the regulator has effectively unlocked the next phase of expansion for all serious players in the segment, said Manish Mayank, an industry expert. He said: Over the past year, several new-age corporate entrants tested the waters with selective branch openings, and the results have given them the confidence to scale aggressively. With gold prices supportive and unit economics improving, most branches are already operating profitably.

“The new norms now eliminate the procedural bottleneck that forced companies to repeatedly go back to the regulator for approvals, especially when expanding into high-potential local markets.”

India’s central bank is seeking input from commercial lenders on how they can bring in larger and more stable deposits, as a shift in household savings into equities and other investment products threatens to snowball into a bigger problem for the country’s banks.

In meetings with banks over the past few weeks, officials from the Reserve Bank of India discussed how the growing participation in financial markets has changed the nature of bank deposits — which are now sourced more from institutions such as mutual funds as opposed to lower-cost individual household savings, according to people familiar with the matter.

The RBI, which is also the country’s financial regulator, asked banks what more could be done to attract large deposits to keep pace with loan growth, said the people, who requested anonymity because the talks were private. The discussions could pave the way for regulatory changes on the type of new products that can be offered, the people said.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has published a medium-term strategy framework called Utkarsh 2.0 to highlight multiple strategy pillars: Regulations, customer centricity, inclusive finance, competitive markets, effective technology, a future-ready organisation, and a global India focus.

The RBI said the framework would focus on simplifying regulations, deepening financial markets and enhancing accessibility, while also prioritising digitisation and innovation across its operations.

The plan places emphasis on improving customer service and financial inclusion, alongside efforts to strengthen market infrastructure and pricing transparency, particularly in government securities. Technology adoption, including artificial intelligence and digitalisation of internal processes, is expected to play a central role.

The Reserve Bank on Friday proposed changes in the criteria for identifying upper layer non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), pitching for an asset-size-based approach as against the earlier parametric system and inclusion of state-run entities.

As per the draft 'Reserve Bank of India (Non-Banking Financial Companies' Registration, Exemptions and Framework for Scale Based Regulation) Second Amendment Directions, 2026', upper layer NBFCs will be those having assets of over Rs 1 lakh crore.

"With a view to adopt a transparent, simple and absolute criteria for identification of NBFC-UL, it is proposed to replace the existing methodology with asset size criteria, which is currently proposed as Rs 1,00,000 crore and above," the draft put on the RBI website said.

The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday released a discussion paper proposing a series of measures to tackle the sharp rise in digital payment fraud, including a mandatory time lag on certain bank transfers, extra authentication for senior citizens making large transactions, caps on suspicious accounts, and a one-click "kill switch" for customers to instantly freeze all digital payments. Comments on the paper are open until May 8, 2026.

The centrepiece proposal is a one-hour delay on account-to-account transfers above Rs 10,000 made by individuals, sole proprietors, or partnership firms — transactions where there is no chargeback mechanism if fraud occurs. The delay could be applied at the sender's end, the receiver's end, or both. The Rs 10,000 threshold is deliberate, as such transactions account for around 45% of fraud cases by volume and represent nearly 98.5% of total fraud value, according to data from the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP).

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Thursday issued a final circular outlining measures to accelerate cross-border inward remittances, mandating banks to credit payments received during foreign exchange market hours to beneficiary accounts on the same business day.

Currently, less than 8-10% of inward remittances in India are credited to beneficiary accounts within an hour, compared with around 75% in the United States.

Banks have been given six months to implement this requirement, while all other provisions will come into effect immediately.

RBI has also directed banks to reconcile and confirm credits in their nostro accounts on a near real-time basis or at intervals not exceeding 30 minutes.

Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra, along with Deputy Governors T Rabi Sankar, Swaminathan J, and Poonam Gupta, addressed a range of issues during the post-monetary policy press conference.

One structural change in this policy seems to be that you have started providing the figure for the core inflation rate. While the full-year inflation average rate is 4.4 per cent, that for the second half moves closer to 5 per cent. Should the markets be prepared for a rate increase, especially as liquidity tightens?

Malhotra: This has been a long-standing request from market participants, and we felt this was the right time to introduce it, especially after completing the five-year review.

That said, I would not call it a shift in monetary policy.

Core inflation has always been tracked internally and we are now sharing the projections.

In the post-policy press conference, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra and deputy governors spoke on the impact of the West Asia war and the rationale behind measures taken to arrest the rupee depreciation during the post-policy press conference. Excerpts:

You started providing forecasts for core inflation. What are you trying to indicate here?

For us, the headline is the target and we have to ensure that it remains within the band. That’s the primary goal for us. But at the same time, the various components of inflation and where they are emanating from are also very important. We will continue to look into all components and then take a call on how we need to respond to the various components while keeping in mind that the ultimate target is headline inflation.

Indian scheduled commercial banks' gross non-performing assets (NPAs) ratio declined further to 2 per cent in December 2025, the Reserve Bank said on Wednesday.

Gross NPAs -- which represents the proportion of loans unpaid for over 90 days -- for the banking system had stood at 2.5 per cent in the year-ago period, as per the bi-annual Monetary Policy Report released by the central bank.

The improvement in asset quality was across sectors, including retail loans, services, industry, and agriculture.
NPAs in retail loans eased to 1 per cent, services eased to 1.7 per cent, industry eased to 1.8 per cent, and agriculture eased to 5.7 per cent in December 2025.

It can be noted that NPAs have been improving for many quarters now, reflecting sustained recoveries, upgrades, and write-offs.

Amid concerns about the likely impact of the West Asia conflict and the costs extracted through supply chain disruptions, the RBI said there is no need to worry about the same.

The Reserve Bank-led monetary policy panel believes that the economy is in a good shape and that the interest rate can remain low for long if the ceasefire holds or the war ends conclusively.

Earlier in the day, governor Sanjay Malhotra said the MPC, which got its third five-year flexible inflation targeting mandate last week, has decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 5.25% and also maintained policy stance neutral after reconsidering to some extent the impact of the ceasefire announcement by the three warring parties in West Asia in the wee hours of Wednesday.

Given the massive increase in crude prices, which had spiked more than 55% last month, and its impact on inflation and the overall growth, the MPC has revised down growth forecast for the current fiscal to 6.9% down (from 7.4% FY26).

The Reserve Bank on Wednesday proposed to drop the due diligence requirement for MSMEs to onboard TReDS platforms to promote ease of doing business for micro, small and medium enterprises.

Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) refers to a system for facilitating financing of trade receivables. It is a technology platform on a digital or electronic network for facilitating factoring of trade receivables through multiple financiers.

The TReDS platform will bring participants together for facilitating uploading, accepting, discounting, and settlement of the invoices/bills of sellers, according to draft directions for 'Trade Receivables Discounting System', on which the central bank has invited comments by May 1.

It will also put in place a suitable mechanism to ensure the genuineness of the uploaded invoices/bills, it added.

"The platform shall ensure efficient and seamless settlement of transactions between financier and seller for financing of trade receivables and between buyer and financier on the due date, using any existing payment system," the draft said.

The Reserve Bank of India has relaxed capital computation norms for banks, removing a key NPA-linked condition for including quarterly profits in capital adequacy calculations, while also proposing to do away with the Investment Fluctuation Reserve (IFR), RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said in the first bi-monthly policy review of FY27.

Under existing rules, banks could include quarterly profits in their capital to risk weighted assets ratio (CRAR) only if incremental provisioning for non-performing assets (NPAs) did not deviate more than 25% from the four quarter average. The RBI has now proposed to dispense with this requirement, easing constraints on capital recognition. The regulator will issue draft amendments for public comment.

Separately, the central bank will remove the requirement for banks to maintain an IFR, which is an additional buffer against mark-to-market losses on investments, given the evolution of prudential norms, including capital charges for market risk and revised investment classification frameworks.

RBI Monetary Policy Meeting Highlights: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has kept policy repo rate unchanged at 5.25% and continues with ‘Neutral’ stance.

The six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) headed by RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra began meeting on April 6.

RBI voted to keep policy repo rates unchanged even as it continues to monitor global uncertainties. The RBI’s six-member monetary policy committee voted to keep the repo rate steady at 5.25%

RBI MPC Outlook amid heightened global worries
The central bank noted that the policy comes at a time when the global economy is facing significant challenges due to heightened geopolitical tensions, particularly the ongoing conflict in West Asia, along with disruptions in global supply chains.

The RBI Governor said that before the outbreak of the conflict, India’s macroeconomic fundamentals reflected strong growth and low inflation.

Lenders offering gold loans are bracing for margin pressure as tighter underwriting and documentation norms under Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) revised gold loan framework are expected to raise compliance costs.

According to industry experts, some lenders could also see a sharp slowdown in growth due to operational adjustments and stricter renewal rules.

Industry players have already begun recalibrating their underwriting, documentation and monitoring practices in line with the revised framework, which took effect from April 1. IIFL Finance, for instance, said it had started aligning its processes ahead of the rollout.

“Our focus has been on strengthening credit assessment and repayment capacity evaluation, alongside tighter documentation and compliance frameworks,” said Manish Mayank, head of gold loan business, IIFL Finance.

The rupee surged 1.82% on Thursday to close at 93.10 against the dollar—its biggest single-day gain in over 12 years—after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cracked down on speculative activity in offshore non-deliverable forward (NDF) markets. The rupee also emerged as the best-performing Asian currency for the day.

During intra-day trade, the currency strengthened further to 92.83 as banks began unwinding long dollar positions.

Aggressive Unwinding
“Banks have now started unwinding positions aggressively. They held off on Monday to avoid impacting financial year-end P&L, but with no relief from the RBI, they are unwinding now,” said a dealer at a state-owned bank. Currency traders estimate that positions worth around $10 billion were unwound during the day.

Just days after it clamped down on banks’ local currency limits, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday stepped up efforts to curb speculation against the battered rupee, restricting lenders from offering certain offshore foreign
exchange derivative contracts.

The central bank barred authorised dealers (banks) from offering non-deliverable forward (NDF) contracts in the rupee to both resident and non-resident clients. In effect, corporates and treasury desks can no longer take NDF positions.

Banks may continue to offer deliverable forex derivatives for genuine hedging needs, but only if clients are not maintaining offsetting non-deliverable positions elsewhere.

India's central bank is likely to boost liquidity ahead of the fiscal year end, economists said, as it seeks to restrain short-term rates from spiking and offset the impact of its currency-market interventions that sought to arrest the rupee's precipitous slide since the start of the Iran war.

The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) liquidity-enhancing arsenal includes open market operations (OMOs) for bond purchases, or dollar-rupee buy-sell swaps, bankers and economists said.

The aim of such exercises is twofold: to keep system liquidity comfortable and to ensure call money rates sit at the lower end of the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) corridor, helping contain short-term borrowing costs for banks and prevent bond yields from rising.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked banks to furnish detailed information on their exposure to the Middle East, said bankers.

“The RBI has asked for a comprehensive breakdown of exposure, covering not just loans but also contingent liabilities such as guarantees and letters of credit,” said one banker, who confirmed the development on condition of anonymity.

Another senior state-run banker added, “We have been asked to provide details of the affected sector operating in the region. The exercise is aimed at mapping risks more closely.”

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is unlikely to immediately raise interest rates despite inflationary pressures from rising crude oil prices, as the current situation reflects a supply-side shock rather than demand-driven inflation, according to Trinh Nguyen, Senior economist, Emerging Asia at Natixis.

In an exclusive conversation with while discussing the ongoing energy crisis triggered by the conflict in West Asia, Nguyen said central banks are unlikely to react with immediate rate hikes as the situation is still evolving.

"I don't think any central bank is going to hike rates right now, just because we have a situation where we have a supply shock. It's so early, and we don't know how long the duration of this is," she said.