RBI finalises Basel III leverage-ratio and operational-risk capital rules for banks, effective April 2027

The Reserve Bank of India issued two amendment directions on 23 October 2026, both taking effect from 1 April 2027, completing its rollout of the revised Basel III capital-adequacy framework for commercial banks other than Small Finance Banks, Payment Banks and Regional Rural Banks, as earlier announced in the Governor's statement of 1 October 2025. The first, the Reserve Bank of India (Commercial Banks – Prudential Norms on Capital Adequacy) Eleventh Amendment Directions, 2026, finalises India's adoption of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's 'Leverage Ratio 2017 Standard'. These follow a draft the RBI published on 7 August 2026, on which it invited public feedback until 28 August 2026; that feedback was examined and incorporated into the final text.

The second, the Reserve Bank of India (Commercial Banks – Forthcoming Instructions) Second Amendment Directions, 2026, amends the Directions the RBI had issued on 28 November 2025, whose Chapter IV on Minimum Capital Requirements for Operational Risk had left the implementation date and an indicative mapping of Business Indicator components to banks' financial-statement line items 'to be provided in due course'. The new Direction now fixes that implementation date for the Basel III Standardised Approach for operational-risk capital, supplies the indicative mapping, and incorporates further clarifications the Basel Committee issued since. Together, the two notifications tell commercial banks precisely how and from when both strands of the revised Basel III regime will bind them.