Reserve Bank of India — what changed, and what to watch

2026-11-09 · reform

The oldest and most powerful financial regulator in India — and the one that touches the most people. The RBI licenses and supervises banks, NBFCs and payment systems, sets interest-rate policy through the Monetary Policy Committee, and runs the ombudsman scheme that is most Indians' only practical route to compensation when a bank or wallet loses their money.

RegTrac Brief · 2026-11-09 · Statutory regulator · register as of 12 September 2026

What changed

2026-11-05 — RBI consolidates cyber resilience and digital payment security rules for non-bank Payment System Operators into one Master Direction (RBI/DPSS/2026-27/475); large and medium PSOs comply from issuance, small PSOs from 1 April 2028; six-hour incident reporting to RBI and CERT-In (Reform source).
2026-10-29 — Supreme Court (In Re Victims of Digital Arrest Related To Forged Documents, SMW(Crl) 3/2025): RBI KYC Amendment Directions 2026 to be notified by 30 Nov 2026 and operationalised by 31 Dec 2026; directions must mandate compensation not less than the amount lost where an institution's due diligence failed; RBI to submit list of all authorised financial institutions (Register note source).
2026-09-10 — UFF recognised as second RBI SRO-FT (10 Sep 2026) — tracked in SROTrac (SRO framework source).
2025-10-01 — Shirish Chandra Murmu appointed RBI Deputy Governor (Oct 2025) (Leadership source).
Governor: Sanjay Malhotra (since 2024-12 — 26th Governor) (appointment source).
Deputy Governor: Poonam Gupta (since 2025-04) (appointment source).
Deputy Governor: Shirish Chandra Murmu (since 2025-10) (appointment source).
Deputy Governor: T. Rabi Sankar (since 2021-08 — Portfolios: IT, foreign exchange (post-Oct 2025 rejig); in office as of Sep 2026) (appointment source).
Deputy Governor: Swaminathan Janakiraman (since 2023-06 — Reappointed 2 years from 26 Jun 2026 (till 2028); portfolios: supervision, financial inclusion) (appointment source).
Register position as rebuilt on 12 September 2026; every line above carries its own source.

Why it matters

Issue, suspend and cancel licences; impose moratoria (the Yes Bank moratorium, 2020, is the template)
Monetary policy: statutory inflation target of 4% (+/- 2%) under the 2016 amendments; MPC rate decisions
Directions and master directions — the real rulebook; everything from UPI transaction limits to NBFC conduct
Recognition of self-regulatory organisations: the SRO-FT framework (draft Jan 2024) produced FACE (Aug 2024) and UFF (Sep 2026) — tracked in SROTrac
Depositor protection lever: ₹5 lakh deposit insurance via DICGC (a wholly owned subsidiary)
Statute and mandate: Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 (operational 1 Apr 1935) — RBI official site · RegTrac register entry.

The RBI recognises India's fintech SROs — FACE and UFF — so who sits inside them decides how industry consensus forms: SROTrac tracks those rosters.

Who is affected

Grievance route: RBI Integrated Ombudsman Scheme — cms.rbi.org.in (free; escalate after 30 days of no reply from the regulated entity) (RBI site).
Zero-MDR on UPI and debit cards is a statutory mandate (from Jan 2020) — if a merchant refuses UPI or adds a "UPI charge", that is a violation, not a policy.
Unclaimed deposits sit in RBI's Depositor Education and Awareness fund — the RBI runs drives to return them; check your family's dormant accounts.
The full route, with the register's own notes on escalation, is in the RegTrac register entry for RBI.

What to watch

The top jobs are central-government appointments; the Board mix is government-nominated. Leadership churn (2024-25) happened entirely through ACC decisions.
The SRO framework formally hands industry consensus formation (fees, codes, grievance standards) to industry bodies — SROTrac tracks who those members are.
Consultation practice: draft master directions invite comments, but the RBI does not systematically publish who commented or what changed — the LobbyWatch gap.
Every watchpoint above is tracked against the RegTrac register entry for RBI, as rebuilt on 12 September 2026; no line here rests on information the register does not carry.

Evidence

Editorial swarm: tracker ✓ · evidence ✓ · advocate ✓ · institutional ✓ · mapper ✓ · skeptic ✓ · gated by scripts/editorial.py on 2026-11-10 02:17 UTC.