RBI Withdraws 104 Redundant and Duplicate Circulars As Recommended by RRA

Moneylife Digital Team 16 November 2021

Investor Interest

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to withdraw 104 regulatory instructions and circulars that have become redundant or were duplicated as per the Regulations Review Authority's interim recommendation (RRA).

In a notification, RBI says, "A comprehensive review of the circulars issued by the department of payment and settlement systems (DPSS) was undertaken as part of the rationalisation exercise under RRA 2.0, and as per recommendations of the RRA, the regulatory instructions and circulars stand withdrawn with immediate effect."

In April this year, the central bank decided to set up RRA to review the regulatory instructions, remove redundant and duplicate instructions, reduce the compliance burden on regulated entities (REs) by streamlining reporting structure, and to revoke obsolete instructions wherever possible, preventing the paper-based submission of returns.

It was also envisaged that the RRA would engage internally and externally with all regulated entities and other stakeholders to facilitate this process. The RRA has also constituted an advisory group representing the REs under the chairmanship of Swaminathan J, managing director (MD) of State Bank of India.

RRA has been engaging in extensive consultations with both internal and external stakeholders on reviewing the regulatory and supervisory instructions for their simplification and ease of implementation. Based on these consultations and the suggestions of the advisory group, the RRA has recommended withdrawal of 150 circulars in the first tranche of recommendations, RBI says.

Instructions and circulars that stand withdrawn include those issued since 2005. The last circular that is withdrawn is dated 21 August 2019, about an increase in operating hours for the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system.

The majority of these outdated or duplicate instructions and circulars are related to anti-money laundering (AML) or combating of financing of terrorism (CFT) and a list of terrorist individuals or organisations under the UN Security Council (SCR).

Some of the outdated or duplicate instructions and circulars are related to know-your-customer (KYC), electronic clearing service (ECS), and RTGS. (Do check the notification issued by RBI for more details)

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