INTRODUCTION
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) published the Master Direction
– Reserve Bank of India (Non-Banking Financial Company
– Scale Based Regulation) Directions 2023 (SBR Master
Directions) on 19 October 2023. The SBR Master Directions brings an
end to the basic categorisation of NBFCs into systemically
important and non-systemically important NBFCs.
The SBR Master Directions have been issued in supersession of
the: (i) Non-Banking Financial Company–Non-Systemically
Important Non-Deposit taking (Reserve Bank) Directions, 2016, and
(ii) Non-Banking Financial Company–Systemically Important
Non-Deposit taking Company and Deposit taking Company (Reserve
Bank) Directions, 2016 (collectively, the Erstwhile Regulatory
Regime). The SBR Master Directions bring about the long-awaited
harmonisation of the Erstwhile Regulatory Regime with the Scale
Based Regulation framework for NBFCs, published by the RBI on 22
October 2021 and effective from 1 October 2022 (SBR