A shift towards decluttering, rationalisation

Calendar 2025 stands out as a watershed moment in the evolution of the country's financial regulatory architecture.

- RAVI DUVVURU

As Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra observed, “The journey ahead will demand continuous adaptation and agility, fresh thinking and innovation, collaboration and coordination, and an unwavering commitment to excellence and perfection.” The RBI's actions throughout the year reflected this thought, marking a decisive shift towards principle-based regulation and systematic rationalisation of legacy instructions.

I set out below five reflections on the path the RBI travelled in 2025:

First, the year was defined by the RBI's concerted effort to simplify and de-clutter regulatory instructions. Over time, the accumulation of circulars, master circulars, master directions (MDs), clarifications, and press releases had increased complexity, created interpretational challenges, and made compliance arduous.

For compliance professionals, the large-scale consolidation exercise undertaken by the RBI felt like a breath of fresh spring air. To appreciate its scale, nearly 9,445 circulars were repealed and consolidated into just 244 MDs.