RBI RETIRES SIX DECADES OF CIRCULARS, CONSOLIDATES 9,445 RULES

In one of its most comprehensive such steps in decades, Reserve Bank of India has retired circulars that trace the entire arc of the country's financial regulation—from the paper-era instructions of 1959 to the digital-payments tweaks of 2019.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

The cleanup is part of a sweeping consolidation that has reorganised more than 9,000 existing instructions into 238 Master Directions, now forming the sole library of regulations administered by the Department of Regulation.

The earliest withdrawn entries date to 26 March 1959 and 13 November, both issued under Section 35B of the Banking Companies Act, 1949. These instructions were drafted for a banking system that functioned without computers, without electronic clearing, and without modern prudential norms. Yet, until now, they still sat technically “alive” in Reserve Bank's vast archive.

Soon after, come withdrawals from 30 June 1964, 15 June 1968, 21 August, 13 November, and early 1969 and 1970, covering supervisory procedures, reporting requirements, and compliance instructions tied to laws and workflows that have been rewritten many times since.

Many of these circulars survived simply because no formal repeal was issued when newer frameworks were introduced-a pattern repeated for decades.

The list becomes far more revealing once it enters the late 1990s and early 2000s, the period when Indian banking began its transition into electronic systems.

Withdrawn instructions from 2000-2005 include early operational guidelines for magnetic-stripe cards, directions to banks implementing the first versions of RTGS, and advisories for the earliest electronic funds transfer mechanisms. Some circulars dictated the precise settlement windows for NEFT when it operated in limited half-hour batches-a stark contrast to the continuous, 24×7 payment infrastructure India runs today.