The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on July 31, 2026, issued the Reserve Bank of India (Small Finance Banks - Supervisory Returns) Directions, 2026.
These Directions shall come into effect on July 31, 2026.
The following has been stated:
• The Directions require banks to establish robust governance mechanisms, with the Board of Directors and Senior Management being responsible for identifying and managing data quality risks, ensuring strong risk data aggregation, maintaining data confidentiality and integrity, allocating adequate IT and human resources, and integrating reporting capabilities into all major business and technology initiatives. Banks shall maintain reliable data architecture and IT infrastructure capable of producing accurate, complete, timely, and stress-tested supervisory data, while ensuring proper reconciliation with accounting records, maintaining audit trails, documenting data sources, and increasing automation in reporting processes.
• The Directions mandate that all supervisory returns be submitted electronically through RBI's designated online reporting portals, including the Centralised Information Management System (CIMS), and clarify that returns submitted through physical copies or email will generally not be accepted except in contingency situations.
• The Directions consolidate 33 supervisory returns covering areas such as asset-liability management, asset quality, operating results, liquidity, capital adequacy, interest rate sensitivity, large exposures, CRILC reporting, defaulted borrowers, ownership and governance, subsidiaries, consolidated prudential information, profitability, connected lending, Basel liquidity standards, leverage ratio, financial inclusion, customer complaints, stressed MSME loans, Digital Banking Units, financial conglomerates, investment portfolios, financial soundness indicators, gold metal loans, and fraud monitoring, with specified reporting frequencies ranging from weekly to annual or event-based reporting.
• The Directions also prescribe uniform timelines for filing supervisory returns. Weekly returns shall be submitted by the following Wednesday, monthly returns within 15 days, and quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly returns within 21 days from the reference date, unless specific exceptions apply. Special timelines have been prescribed for certain returns, such as Consolidated Prudential Returns (CPR), Financial Conglomerate Reports, Red Flagged Account Returns, Gold Metal Loan Returns, and Fraud Monitoring Returns, which shall be filed within prescribed periods ranging from immediate reporting to 45 days, depending on the nature of the return.
• Further, the Directions repeal all earlier instructions relating to supervisory returns applicable to Small Finance Banks while preserving actions, approvals, investigations, liabilities, and proceedings initiated under the repealed framework.
[Notification No. – RBI/DoS/2026-27/424 DoS.CO.DSG.18/33.01.001/2026-27]
