RBI issues 244 consolidated Master Directions, repeals many to reduce compliance burden

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday (November 28, 2025) issued 244 consolidated Master Directions (MD) after undertaking a review exercise pertaining to approximately 3500 directions, circulars, and guidelines issued over the years, to reduce compliance burden on the Regulated Entities (REs). 

“These 244 MDs consolidate all the regulatory instructions issued to the REs over several decades which are currently administered by Department of Regulation,” Shirish Chandra Murmu, Deputy Governor, RBI told at a press conference.

These instructions have been issued separately for 11 types of regulated entities and are cohesively organized across various regulatory areas. 

The 11 regulated entities include commercial banks, small finance banks, payments banks, local area banks, regional rural banks, urban cooperative banks, rural cooperative banks, all India financial institutions, non-banking financial companies, asset reconstruction companies, and credit information companies.

Mr. Murmu said 9,446 circulars are being repealed or withdrawn following the issue of these consolidated MDs.

The consolidated master directions have been drafted in a continuous flow approach where the major elements of master directions have been included in the main body.

 Regulatory instructions have been organized into separate master directions for each type of regulated entity on each regulatory area or function.

In addition, residual regulatory instructions have been consolidated in a separate miscellaneous master directions for each regulated entity, he said. 

Instructions pertaining to the responsibilities of the boards have been segregated at a single place in each master direction.

Advisory elements have been included as a part of the main text using appropriate language conveying advisory nature of the instructions. 

“The RBI has been endeavoring to have a more consultative approach towards regulation making and to this end has issued framework for formulation of regulation early this year which seeks to standardize the process of making regulations in a transparent and consultative manner,” Mr. Murmu said. 

“This consolidation exercise is a milestone and is one more step in our commitment to stakeholders which is expected to significantly improve the accessibility of regulatory instructions for the regulated entities and is a major step in achieving the objective of ease of doing business,” he said. 

Also, consolidation of regulatory instructions separately for each type of regulated entity will improve the clarity on applicability of each instruction to a regulated entity, he said. 

“This exercise will benefit all stakeholders including regulated entities, academicians and researchers, supervisors and the general public at large,” he added. 

The RBI recently undertaken a fundamental reorganisation of the regulatory instructions administered by its Department of Regulation — marking a paradigm shift in its regulatory communication. 

The comprehensive exercise involved consolidation of more than 9000 existing circular/ guidelines administered by Department of Regulation into 238 function-wise MDs specific to each category of regulated entity. 

Instructions issued by NABARD to Regional Rural Banks, State Co-operative Banks and Central Co- operative Banks have been consolidated in consultation with NABARD.

The Reserve Bank had received over 770 comments from various stakeholders on the draft MDs. 

Several suggestions were for regulatory changes, which were outside the scope of this consolidation exercise, and hence have not been considered for the purpose of consolidation.