MUMBAI: With UPI and other digital rails keeping money in motion round-the-clock – and India’s markets becoming more entwined with global ones – an RBI panel has proposed extending money market hours to 7pm from 5pm. The shift would give banks greater flexibility in managing short-term liquidity and accessing interbank and central bank funds.
The recommendations come from a working group set up to review trading and settlement hours across RBI-regulated markets. The panel argued that trading hours shape how efficiently markets function, affecting liquidity, volatility, and price discovery. Since the last major review in 2019, India’s financial markets expanded in size and complexity, with more participants, a broader range of products, and increased non-resident activity-especially in govt securities and derivatives following regulatory and index changes.Tighter links between onshore and offshore markets, advances in trading infrastructure, and round-the-clock payment systems altered liquidity dynamics, prompting the need to revisit market timings, the panel said.
In money markets, the panel proposed extending call money trading to 7pm, with the reporting window for such transactions to close at 7:30pm. It also recommended that market repo and triparty repo (TREP) trade until 4pm, an hour later than the current close. In line with the trading extension, the settlement window for repo deals would shift to 5:30-6:30pm.
To align market operations at the start of the day, the panel suggested moving forward the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) auction to 9.30-10am. Fine-tuning operations would continue at the central bank’s discretion throughout the day.