India’s clearing house needs to expand globally, deepen tech: RBI’s Sankar

Mumbai: Trade and settlement platform Clearing Corporation of India Ltd (CCIL) needs to expand its footprint globally and deepen its technology capabilities, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor T. Rabi Sankar said on Wednesday.

Calling CCIL a cornerstone of India’s financial market infrastructure, Sankar credited it with enabling one of the world’s most transparent government securities markets.

“CCIL certainly should have a presence globally and be recognised… as an organisation to be reckoned with,” Sankar said at the clearing house’s 25th anniversary event in Mumbai.

He also said that it needs to act as a system-wide enabler. “I always recognise CCIL not as much as a financial infrastructure institution but as a technology institution,” the deputy governor said, adding it should help financial markets absorb rapid technological change while preserving system integrity.

He also highlighted CCIL’s role in improving retail participation in government securities through the RBI Retail Direct platform, saying that it has become one of the easiest ways for individuals to invest.

“It has never been that easy to invest in government securities in India,” he said, adding that adoption would ultimately depend on the “risk-return trade-off vis-à-vis every other instrument.”

Asked about the recent rollback on the net open position (NOP) circular, Sankar clarified that it is a temporary measure. “All that was done was to deal with a temporary event that created a large volatility in the market,” he said. “Once that is taken care of, we should be back on track.”

On lifting the existing $100 million cap under the NOP rules for banks, he said that those decisions would be taken in due course.

On Monday, the RBI eased parts of its forex rules for banks, allowing certain related-party hedging transactions to continue and clarifying that they will not be treated as speculative trades.

Banks can continue undertaking back-to-back hedging transactions, including across overseas branches, as long as they are genuine risk-offsetting trades. The overall $100 million NOP limit remains unchanged, and the revised rules take effect immediately, RBI had said in a circular.

The central bank has also allowed banks to retain existing positions within the $100 million cap until maturity, or modify them if required, removing the need for premature unwinding.

The NOP limit defines the maximum unhedged foreign exchange exposure a bank can carry and is used by the RBI to curb excessive currency speculation and maintain market stability.

The move follows a series of tightening measures over the past month. On 27 March, the RBI capped banks’ net open positions in the domestic market at $100 million at the end of each business day. On 1 April, the central bank further tightened rules by restricting related-party transactions, including offsetting trades between domestic and overseas branches.

Those steps had aimed to curb one-sided positioning in the rupee and tighten control over speculative flows in the foreign exchange market.

The Indian rupee fell 11% against the US dollar in FY26, and has since recovered nearly 2% after the RBI tightened NOP rules for banks.