Guidelines Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued guidelines for how banks can offer services through digital channels, following industry feedback on the draft guidelines issued in July. Coming into force on 1 January 2026, these rules tighten approvals for banks, raise compliance and customer-protection requirements, and strengthen disclosure and grievance-redressal standards.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Company Outsider is a weekly newsletter by Sundeep Khanna. Subscribe to Mint's newsletters to get them directly in your email inbox. "The attempt and not the deed confounds us," says Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's classic play Macbeth.

mutual funds. To make the most of SIPs, it helps to follow a structured approach—and the 7-5-3-1 rule serves as a useful guideline for investors to manage their expectations and strategies over different time horizons.

Sebi has joined social media platform 'X' with its chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey launching the official account on Friday. The account goes with the username @SEBI_updates. Sebi, in a disclaimer said, content posted to the social media handle is not a rule, regulation, circular, guideline or statement of the Board, but merely for dissemination of information, which may otherwise be available on the official website.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Karnataka High Court has prohibited bike taxis until the government lays down clear guidelines under the Motor Vehicles Act. How significant is this ruling, will it disrupt ride-hailing platforms and reshape daily commutes for users? Mint takes a deep dive: The Karnataka High Court has mandated that shared mobility aggregators, including Rapido, Uber and Ola, cease operations of bike taxis in the state within six weeks due to the absence of specific state regulation around the service.

HDFC Bank will be in focus on Thursday after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) issued an administrative warning letter to the banking major on Wednesday for regulatory non-compliance. This follows a periodic inspection of the bank's custody activities, during which Sebi found alleged non-compliance with specific regulatory guidelines for custodians, as stated in a regulatory filing by the bank.

Election Commission of India (ECI) has concluded its largest-ever engagement drive with political parties, conducting 4,719 meetings nationwide at the levels of Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs), District Election Officers (DEOs), and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) as of March 31, the apex poll body said. According to a ECI release, these meetings, held over 25 days, included 40 by CEOs, 800 by DEOs, and 3,879 by EROs, engaging over 28,000 representatives from political parties across the country. The meetings were held in accordance with directives issued by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, along with Election Commissioners Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr Vivek Joshi, during the CEOs' conference held between March 4-5 this year at India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM) in the national capital. The nationwide meeting across these levels aimed at addressing the pending issues within the legal framework of the Representation of the People Acts of 1950 and 1951, the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, and ECI guidelines. State and Union Territory CEOs have been asked to submit action-taken reports, with unresolved issues to be escalated to the Commission for further review, the release said.

NPCI), which operates the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), on Tuesday announced that some banks were facing an issue, with UPI transactions being declined occasionally. In a post on X, the NPCI stated, “Today due to financial year closing, some of the banks are facing intermittent transaction declines.” The previous financial year closed on March 31 and a new financial year (FY26) commenced on April 1.

bad bank. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed lenders (on Saturday) across the spectrum and ownership types to reverse excess provisions in their profit and loss (P&L) accounts if a loan is transferred to an asset reconstruction company (ARC) at a value exceeding its net book value. The relaxation, the RBI said, would apply if the deal with an ARC includes cash payments upfront and government-guaranteed security receipts (SR).

Steve Bannon, former adviser to President Trump, issued a stark warning during a recent interview, claiming Trump could face prison time if a Democrat wins the White House in 2028. Bannon argued that the political stakes are dire, framing the current climate as “political warfare” and urging supporters to recognize the urgency of the moment. His comments reflect growing tensions over Trump’s legal vulnerabilities and the potential fallout of another partisan shift in power.

GTPL Hathway signed a grant of permission agreement (GOPA) with the information and broadcasting ministry to establish, maintain, and operate a headend-in-the-sky (HITS) broadcasting platform in Ahmedabad for 10 years. The company made the disclosure in a regulatory filing. On July 12, 2024, the company had announced that it had received the ministry’s approval to provide HITS service, subject to compliance with the relevant guidelines.

Bank Nifty and Nifty Midcap Select, increasing them to 35 and 140, respectively. The changes will be effective for all new contracts introduced from April 25, 2025, onwards, NSE said in a circular. The lot size for Bank Nifty will increase from 30 to 35, while Nifty Midcap Select will go up from 120 to 140. Existing contracts with expiries on April 24, May 29, and June 26, 2025, will continue to trade with the previous lot sizes until expiry, NSE said.

Food and Consumer Affairs Ministry said on Friday. The ministry prescribes monthly stock holding limits for white/refined sugar to prevent hoarding and control price increases. For April, the stock holding limit is set at 23.5 lakh tonnes. In a directive issued to mills, the ministry said it has found repeated violations by some group and individual sugar mills despite previous warnings, prompting the issuance of new, stricter guidelines. Key penalties include: for first-time violations, 100 per cent of excess sugar sold will be deducted from the subsequent month's release quota. Subsequent violations will see progressively higher deductions: 115 per cent for the second, 130 per cent for the third, and 150 per cent for the fourth violation. Mills dispatching less than 90 per cent of quota without intimation will have restricted future allocations.

It upheld the 2022 guidelines issued by the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) that prohibited hotels and restaurants from automatically levying a 'service charge' on food bills, reinforcing that these payments must remain voluntary. Dismissing the petitions filed by the Federation of Hotels and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) and the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), which challenged the CCPA’s power to issue such guidelines, Justice Prathiba M Singh said that the Authority is not merely a recommendatory body but is fully empowered and has the jurisdiction to pass the guidelines under the CPA, 2019. “In fact, issuing guidelines in consumer interest is an essential function of CCPA and the guidelines would have to be mandatorily complied with as the scheme of the Act clearly provides for enforcement of guidelines, which would not curtail fundamental rights it held.

ATM interchange fee that banks pay each other, raising it to Rs 19. In a circular, the RBI stated, “Beyond the free transactions, a customer may be charged a maximum fee of Rs 23 per transaction.” Applicable taxes will also need to be paid by the customer. As per RBI guidelines, customers are allowed five free ATM transactions per month at their own bank's ATMs. Additionally, customers are entitled to a fixed number of free transactions at other banks' ATMs: three in metro centers and five in non-metro centers. These transactions can be either financial or non-financial.

NPCI) has addressed the UPI outage issue, calling it a “partial decline” caused by technical issues. Further, it confirmed that the issue has been resolved.

Medium-Term Government Deposit (MTGD) and Long-Term Government Deposit (LTGD) components of the Gold Monetization Scheme (GMS), effective March 26, 2025, as per an Reserve Bank of India (RBI) press release as on March 25, 2025.

Competition Commission of India (CCI) is investigating whether the guidelines and advisories issued by industry bodies Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Broadcasting & Digital Foundation (IBDF) violated competition laws and promoted cartelisation in the advertising industry, according to probe-related documents seen by ET. The investigation was initiated following an August 2024 order by the CCI allowing its director-general to conduct a probe after receiving complaints about possible cartelisation in the advertising industry. The antitrust watchdog on March 18 and 19 searched the premises of these organisations and seized documents. In its application in February seeking approval for the search from a Delhi court, the CCI observed that the allegations pertain to the conduct, guidelines and advisories of these associations, which operate at different levels of the same supply chain.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi) consultation paper, ‘Enhancing Trading Convenience and Strengthening Risk Monitoring in Equity Derivatives,’ issued last month, fulfils a long-standing market demand to increase the economic representativeness of its Open Interest (OI) measurement approach. The proposal will not only help retail investors, but also institutions such as mutual funds that manage retail money.

junk food consumption, especially among children, has raised concerns in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly. During a discussion in the House, Deputy Chief Minister Rajendra Shukla, who also handles the health portfolio, stressed the need to strictly enforce the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) guidelines.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) guidelines to other sectors to create a circular economy, a senior government official said Monday. «We have identified 10-11 sectors with the help of Niti Aayog and hope to implement these circular economy policies (part of EPR) in other sectors as well,» said Ved Prakash Mishra, Joint Secretary, ministry of environment, forest & climate change (MoEF&CC) at a FICCI event. «We cannot rely anymore on the take, make and dispose model.