India Central Bank Proposes Relaxing Key Investment Class Rules

  • RBI paper suggests removing current cap on HTM securities
  • Also proposes allowing more types of instruments in HTM

Outside the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) building in Mumbai.

Photographer: Kanishka Sonthali/Bloomberg
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India’s central bank has suggested changes to the valuation of bank investments, including relaxing rules on a key class of long-term investments that are shielded from frequent valuation changes, but tightening those on shifting securities between classes.

A Reserve Bank of India discussion paper released late Friday suggests removing caps on the Held-To-Maturity (HTM) class of securities, and allowing more types of instruments to be held within them. However banks will not be allowed to sell more than 5% of their investments in this class per year, barring specified exceptions, under the proposed rules.