MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank has proposed to repeal as many as 9,000 of its circulars issued over the years to simplify the regulatory framework and reduce regulatory burden and compliance costs by consolidating them into just about 238 master directions/circulars.
The ongoing simplification drive is aimed at enhancing transparency, eliminating redundant provisions, and strengthening regulatory efficiency across the financial system, the monetary authority said.
The central bank said this consolidation exercise will cover its regulatory instructions issued up to October 9, 2025, and will merge them into 238 master directions across 11 types of regulated entities in up to 30 areas. Consequently, around 9,000 circulars, including master circulars, will be repealed and adjusted in these 238 master directions.
The 11 regulated entities include commercial banks, small finance banks, payments banks, local area banks, regional rural banks, urban co-operative banks, rural co-operative banks, all-India financial institutions, non-banking financial companies, asset reconstruction companies, and credit information companies.
"The proposed consolidation involves all the regulatory instructions administered by the department of regulation (DoR) of the Reserve Bank. Thus, the universe of consolidation includes instructions issued by the DoR as well as the erstwhile departments which have since been merged into the DoR either partly or fully," RBI said in a statement late Friday evening.
The regulator said as part of consolidation, branch authorisation guidelines for commercial banks can be found in one place, while prudential norms on capital adequacy norms for small finance banks will be consolidated in one place. All regulations on different entities have been similarly consolidated in one place according to the subject.
This is a part of the RBI’s comprehensive exercise of consolidating the regulatory instructions currently administered by the DoR on an “as is” basis. As a result, about 9,000 circulars administered by the department will be repealed.
The present exercise of consolidation carries forward the work carried out by the regulations review authority (RRA), set up for reviewing the regulations, circulars, reporting systems, based on the feedback from the public, banks and financial institutions.
The authority has recommended the withdrawal of 714 circulars and discontinuation/merger/conversion to online submission of 65 returns.
The RBI sought public comments on these draft consolidation documents by November 10.
