MUMBAI: Reserve Bank of India has hacked through its regulatory rulebook in what it describes as a once-in-a-generation overhaul, consolidating circulars issued over seven decades of instructions into 244 master directions tailored to 11 categories of regulated entities. The exercise has eliminated 9,446 circulars, some dating back to 1944, replacing a dense and scattered web of rules with a single, continuous reference framework.The reform is not a rewriting of the regulatory regime but more of a reorganisation. The central bank aims to reduce ambiguity in compliance and ensure that lenders do not have to go through thousands of legacy circulars to understand their obligations. “This consolidation exercise is a milestone which is expected to significantly improve the accessibility of regulatory instruction for the regulated entities and is a major step in achieving the objective of ease of doing business,” said deputy governor Shirish Murmu.Of the 9,446 circulars repealed as a result following consolidation, 5,673 were found to be obsolete and completely dropped. For instance, the oldest circular to be dropped was one dating to 1944 pertaining to providing loans against bonds issued by the British govt during the second World War. In addition to consolidating the earlier circulars, the revised master directions include a new one on digital banking which requires that banks obtain explicit consent for digital banking and mandatorily provide alerts for transactions.
