RBI regulations authority bats for updation, periodic review of returns

While the revamp of RBI website is expected to be completed soon, the RRA has recommended that all the contents posted on RBI website be updated on real-time basis.

The RRA has recommended that it should be the RBI’s endeavour that the process of public consultation should be followed for all important regulatory changes being contemplated. (File)

The Regulations Review Authority of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended withdrawal of 714 regulatory instructions which have either become obsolete or redundant and have not been explicitly withdrawn.

Based upon a comprehensive review of the returns submitted by the regulated entities, the RRA has recommended complete elimination of paper-based returns and has identified 65 regulatory returns which should either be discontinued or merged with other returns or should be converted into online returns.

In its report submitted to the RBI, the RRA has also suggested that review and revocation of time-barred and old regulations may be taken up for alignment with the recent circulars and this exercise can be institutionalised in such a manner that only the current and updated instructions are available in public domain.

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It has proposed a periodic review of regulatory or supervisory returns at least once in three years. The RRA has recommended that ad hoc returns introduced for capturing specific data should be prescribed with a sunset clause of not more than six months and any extension beyond the initial period or converting them to a permanent return must be done after going through the rigour of scrutiny and approval of the Returns Governance Group (RGG).

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It has also recommended a shift from the current prescription of submitting data on a reporting fortnight basis to a system of reporting data on the 15th and last working day of every calendar month. This would improve inter-temporal comparison of banking data and other economic variables and improve data quality, the RRA said.

Apart from the review which has been undertaken under the current exercise, RRA has recommended that return-prescribing departments may frequently review the contents and periodicity of the returns with a view to ascertain the need for their continuance.

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The RRA has recommended that it should be the RBI’s endeavour that the process of public consultation should be followed for all important regulatory changes being contemplated. The draft instructions should ideally be placed on the RBI website for stakeholder comments and finalised after considering the feedback, it said.

While the revamp of RBI website is expected to be completed soon, the RRA has recommended that all the contents posted on RBI website be updated on real-time basis. The RBI website layout should be enhanced to make it more interactive and convenient for navigation, it said.