India RBI adds bank deposits to CAS statements

The policy matters economically because bank deposits are the largest and most basic savings instrument for Indian households, and their exclusion has long left a major slice of financial wealth scattered across institutions. Bringing deposits into one consented view should reduce unclaimed balances, make it easier for families to trace assets after a death and improve the quality of financial data used across lending, wealth management and insurance.

RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said the central bank was trying to bring deposit information from all onboarded banks into the CAS over time, adding that a consolidated view would help address cases where deposits are “getting lost.” That is not just an administrative convenience. For banks and other financial firms, more complete account-level visibility can sharpen customer profiling and support product cross-selling, while for consumers it may lower the friction of basic financial planning.

The move also strengthens the account-aggregator framework itself, which the RBI is pushing toward becoming a core layer of India’s digital financial infrastructure. The regulator will introduce interoperability among NBFC account aggregators, allowing customers to route data through a single provider of choice rather than being locked into fragmented platforms. The changes are due to be implemented by Dec. 31.

That comes at a time when the system is already operating at scale. The account-aggregator ecosystem had 338.04 million linked accounts and 566.26 million cumulative fulfilled consents as of August, with 352.48 million datasets delivered that month alone, the highest level between February and August. In other words, the infrastructure is no longer experimental; the RBI is now expanding its use case.

For financial institutions, the immediate winners are likely to be lenders, insurers, brokers and asset managers that can use consented deposit data to improve underwriting and tailor offerings. That may help the broader financial sector, especially companies focused on distribution and data-driven product design. The losers are institutions that have benefited from fragmented visibility, and households that have so far relied on manual record-keeping to locate dormant accounts.

Investors should read the move as another sign that India is building a more connected financial data stack, one that could raise the efficiency of credit and wealth channels over time. The near-term revenue impact for banks is limited, but the strategic effect is bigger: better data portability and interoperability can increase customer engagement, strengthen ecosystem participation and, eventually, support more granular financial services.

The key watchpoint is implementation. The practical value of the policy will depend on how quickly banks come onboard, how smoothly the aggregators interoperate and whether other savings products such as insurance, employee provident fund balances and other retirement assets are eventually included. If that happens, the CAS could evolve from a reporting tool into a much broader map of household financial wealth.