RBI Grade B Current Affairs — 9 July 2026

Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), India's national financial inclusion mission launched on August 28, 2014, completed seven years of implementation in 2021. As of recent data, the scheme has over 53 crore beneficiary accounts with total deposits exceeding ₹2.3 lakh crore. Women account holders constitute approximately 55% of total accounts. Over 36 crore RuPay debit cards have been issued. The scheme provides zero-balance accounts, accidental insurance cover of ₹2 lakh, and life cover of ₹30,000.

PMJDY was conceived as the foundation of India's JAM Trinity — Jan-Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile — the architecture that enabled Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to leak-proof government welfare delivery. Before PMJDY, an estimated 40% of Indian adults had no formal bank account, severely limiting credit access, insurance penetration, and government subsidy targeting.

The scheme operates on a 'bank-mitra' (Business Correspondent) model, extending banking services to unbanked villages through human touchpoints rather than physical branches — critical for India's geography. Each account comes with a RuPay debit card, an overdraft facility of up to ₹10,000 (for accounts older than six months with satisfactory conduct), accidental insurance cover of ₹2 lakh, and a life cover of ₹30,000 for eligible new account holders.

PMJDY's macroeconomic significance became starkly visible during COVID-19 when the government transferred ₹500/month directly to over 20 crore women Jan-Dhan account holders under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana — a feat impossible without this infrastructure. It also enabled LPG subsidy rationalisation (PAHAL), MGNREGS wage payments, and PM-KISAN transfers.

For RBI Grade B, the linkage between PMJDY and monetary transmission matters: banked households are more responsive to interest rate signals and formal credit. For UPSC GS3, PMJDY exemplifies technology-driven inclusive growth — but challenges persist: dormant accounts, last-mile connectivity gaps, and thin financial literacy remain structural concerns.

The Reserve Bank of India has been tightening oversight of stock market-linked financial products, including regulations on bank lending against securities, margin trading exposure norms, and NBFC investments in capital markets. RBI's macro-prudential measures aim to curb speculative leverage, reduce systemic risk from equity-credit linkages, and strengthen investor confidence. These steps follow concerns about frothy valuations, retail investor participation surge post-COVID, and interconnectedness between banking and capital market systems in India.

India's stock market has seen an extraordinary retail investor surge since 2020 — demat accounts crossed 15 crore by 2024, and daily derivatives volumes on NSE regularly exceed ₹500 lakh crore notional. This rapid expansion created a hidden risk: banks and NBFCs were increasingly exposed to capital markets through margin funding, loans against shares (LAS), and investments in market-linked instruments. If equity prices correct sharply, these exposures can trigger a credit event, creating contagion from markets to the banking system.

RBI's regulatory interventions target this nexus. Key measures include risk weight increases on consumer credit and NBFC exposures (November 2023), tighter LAS norms, and guidelines limiting bank exposure to capital markets under Section 19(2) of the Banking Regulation Act. RBI also monitors systemic risk through its Financial Stability Report (FSR), which flags equity-credit interconnectedness as a macro-prudential concern.

The logic is straightforward: healthier markets need discipline, not just depth. When leverage is cheap and unchecked, bubbles form. When they burst, it is banks — and therefore ordinary depositors — who absorb losses. Tighter RBI rules act as a circuit breaker, ensuring that capital market enthusiasm does not become a banking sector liability. For RBI Grade B aspirants, this topic sits at the intersection of financial stability, macro-prudential policy, and capital market regulation — a classic analytical essay zone.