Overview
- Governor Sanjay Malhotra said no regulator should substitute for bank board decisions and urged case-by-case judgment rather than one-size-fits-all rules.
- The RBI’s October package allows banks to finance acquisitions, raises limits on loans against shares, and proposes a transition to an expected credit loss provisioning framework.
- Acquisition financing will carry safeguards including a cap of up to 70% of deal value, exposure limits linked to Tier-1 capital, debt-to-equity thresholds, and eligibility criteria.
- Malhotra framed the easing as cautious but necessary to support real-economy credit, emphasizing incremental changes within a multilayered regulatory regime.
- Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar reported a rise in frauds per transaction since July and said the RBI is deploying digital tools such as the 'mule hunter' to identify conduit accounts.