RBI Grade B Current Affairs — 23 June 2026

India's RBI, IRDAI, and SEBI have intensified efforts to recover unclaimed financial assets. The DFS campaign 'Your Money, Your Right' (Oct–Dec 2025) covered 748 districts, returning ₹5,777 crore across 22.95 lakh claims by February 2026. Unclaimed deposits in RBI's DEA Fund stood at ₹60,518 crore (Jan 2026), unclaimed insurance totalled ₹8,973.89 crore, and unclaimed mutual fund assets reached ₹3,749.34 crore. Digital portals UDGAM, Bima Bharosa, and MITRA now enable integrated tracking.

Unclaimed financial assets — deposits lying dormant for 10+ years, lapsed insurance policies, and abandoned mutual fund units — represent a significant consumer protection and financial inclusion challenge. When deposits remain unclaimed for 10 years, banks transfer them to RBI's Depositor Education and Awareness (DEA) Fund, which was established under Section 26A of the Banking Regulation Act. The sheer scale — over ₹73,000 crore across banking, insurance, and securities sectors — signals systemic gaps in nominee registration, financial literacy, and settlement procedures.

The regulatory response is multi-pronged. RBI's UDGAM portal (already with 18.86 lakh users) allows cross-bank searches in one place — a major UX improvement. The Banking Laws (Amendment) Act, 2025 permitting up to four nominees per account directly tackles the root cause: unclear succession creates most unclaimed deposits. RBI's incentive scheme offering 5–7.5% payouts to successful claimants creates a market mechanism to accelerate recovery.

For SEBI, simplified documentation for claims under ₹5 lakh and image-based processing reduce friction for retail investors — aligned with its broader investor protection mandate. IRDAI's mandate to collect nominee details at the proposal stage is preventive rather than curative.

The inter-regulatory working group tasked with building a single integrated portal signals regulatory convergence — important for RBI Grade B candidates to note as a financial system coordination mechanism. This whole initiative sits at the intersection of consumer protection, financial literacy, and digital public infrastructure.

Indian banks have approached the RBI seeking clarity on whether overseas branches can lend to NRIs who then place proceeds as FCNR(B) deposits with the same bank's Indian entity. SBI has already launched a leveraged foreign-currency demand loan product, using FCNR(B) deposits as collateral. RBI's special swap window, effective June 8, covers deposits mobilised until September 30, 2025, with the swap facility open until October 16, 2025. Banks want explicit regulatory comfort before mass-marketing such leveraged FCNR structures.

FCNR(B) — Foreign Currency Non-Resident (Banks) — deposits are a key instrument for attracting diaspora forex into India. Unlike NRE/NRO accounts, FCNR(B) deposits are held in foreign currency, shielding NRI depositors from INR depreciation risk. When the rupee is under pressure or India needs forex reserves, the RBI has historically activated special windows to encourage FCNR(B) mobilisation — it did so in 2013 and again in 2025.

The current controversy centres on a leveraged FCNR structure: an NRI borrows in foreign currency from an overseas branch of an Indian bank, then parks that borrowed money as an FCNR(B) deposit with the same bank's Indian entity. The deposit is pledged as collateral for the loan, creating a circular flow. The bank earns on the spread; the NRI gains from the interest rate differential and potential currency play.

The regulatory ambiguity arises because RBI's master circular on deposit mobilisation may prohibit banks from creating deposits by lending to the same customer — a multiplier concern. However, SBI argues no explicit bar exists in the latest FCNR(B) scheme circular. The RBI's bespoke swap facility reduces hedging costs for banks, making these deposits more attractive. A formal clarification from RBI could unlock significant forex inflows before the September 30 deadline, but silence creates compliance risk for smaller banks unwilling to follow SBI's lead without explicit approval.