India federal finance ministry seeks relaxation in central bank’s gold loan proposals

MUMBAI (Reuters) -India’s federal finance ministry has sought relaxations in the new rules on gold loans proposed by the central bank, according to a post on its official social media handle.

The department of financial services under the finance ministry has asked the Reserve Bank of India to ensure that the needs of small gold loan borrowers are not “adversely impacted”, a post on the ministry’s verified handle on social media platform X said.

In April this year, the RBI had proposed tighter rules for monitoring and disbursement of gold loans, often used by low-income borrowers. The tighter rules came after such loans surged nearly 30% between September and February.

In its post, the finance ministry said small ticket borrowers below 200,000 rupees ($2,344.05) should be excluded from the tighter rules to ensure “timely and speedy disbursement of loans”.

The ministry also proposed that the new rules not be implemented before January 1, 2026, to ensure the ground staff at lenders are adequately prepared.

The central bank had sought comments on its proposed rules by the middle of May. The final rules are yet to be issued.

On the day, Muthoot Finance rose 4.9% and Manappuram Finance traded 0.5% higher as of 10:34 a.m. IST. IIFL Finance was down 0.6%.

($1 = 85.3225 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Ira Dugal; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)