Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Friday announced additional measures to strengthen customer protection against digital fraud, including compensation of up to ₹25,000 for losses arising from small-value digital frauds.
Speaking after the Monetary Policy Committee meeting on 6 February, Malhotra said the central bank would roll out a broader set of steps aimed at enhancing customer safeguards and improving credit flow.
He added that the measures would also focus on advancing financial inclusion, strengthening urban cooperative banks, easing compliance for non-banking financial companies and deepening India’s financial markets
RBI seeks to ‘empower customers’ — What this entails
- In his address, the RBI Governor said that with a view to customer protection, the central bank will issue three draft guidelines:
- Relating to mis-selling;
- Regarding recovery of loans and engagement of recovery agents;
- And on limiting the liability of customers for unauthorised electronic banking transactions.
- He also proposed introducing a framework to compensate customers up to ₹25000/- for losses incurred in small-value fraudulent transactions.
- Further, the RBI will also publish a discussion paper on possible measures to enhance the safety of digital payments. “Such measures may include lagged credits and additional authentication for a specific class of users like senior citizens,” he added.
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Advancing financial inclusion and flow of credit
Malhotra said the authority has completed a comprehensive review of the Lead Bank Scheme (LBS), the Kisan Credit Card Scheme and the Business Correspondent Model, and “shall issue draft revised guidelines with respect to them”.
- We will also launch a unified reporting portal to improve the management of LBS data.
- The limit of ₹10 lakh for collateral-free loans to MSMEs is proposed to be increased to ₹20 lakh.
- To further promote financing for the real estate sector, it is proposed to allow banks to lend to REITs, subject to certain prudential safeguards.
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Strengthening UCBs: Four measures announced
Of these new measures, Malhotra said the first two pertain to raising the financial limits on unsecured loans and loans to nominal members by UCBs. “We also propose to remove the tenor and moratorium-related requirements on housing loans given by Tier III and Tier IV UCBs,” he added.
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Further, to strengthen the managerial and technical capacity of the UCBs, “we shall launch Mission-SAKSHAM (Sahakari Bank Kshamta Nirman). The mission intends to train over 1.4 lakh participants from UCBs”, he said.
Promoting ease of doing business for NBFCs
Malhotra announced that NBFCs with no public funds and no customer interface, with an asset size not exceeding ₹1000 crore, are proposed to be exempted from the registration requirement.
“Moreover, it is proposed to dispense with the requirement for certain NBFCs to obtain prior approval to open more than 1000 branches,” he added.
Deepening financial markets
On the financial markets, the RBI Governor noted that the central bank had earlier issued revised draft regulations for ECBs (External Commercial Borrowings). “They have been finalised and shall be notified shortly,” he stated.
We also propose to remove the limit of ₹ 2.5 lakh crore for investments under the Voluntary Retention Route (VRR). Investment through the VRR in each category of securities will be subject to the investment ceiling for the respective category under the General Route,” he added.
Malhotra added that, following Budget 2026, the RBI also proposes a regulatory framework for derivatives on corporate bond indices and total return swaps on corporate bonds, and draft revised guidelines for Authorised Dealer banks and stand-alone primary dealers (SPDs), allowing them greater flexibility in undertaking foreign exchange transactions.
