Anand Sinha, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) informed media persons that the central bank would soon release the final guidelines on new banking licences.

He said this while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a discussion on the draft norms for non-banking financial companies (NBFC) released by RBI.

Some sections of financial market players expect the guidelines to be released before the third quarterly review of monetary policy on January 29. Meanwhile, Sinha did not say anything on whether RBI would be giving banking licences to corporate houses.

Speaking about the draft norms on NBFCs, Sinha said RBI would look into the concerns raised by NBFCs. He, however, added nothing could be assured and advised NBFCs “to live with it”. He said there was no question of treating NBFCs on a par with banks, as banks had more stringent regulatory norms.

RBI prepared the norms based on the suggestion from the Usha Thorat committee. NBFCs said they felt the draft norms were very difficult to comply with and have requested these be relaxed.

NBFCs want the RBI to provide tax benefits, access to asset restructuring companies, etc, before the final norms are place. Unlike banks, NBFCs don’t get any tax benefit on their provisioning book. Also, they aren’t permitted to restructure their assets. Any restructuring would lead to the assets being recognised as non-performing, according to extant regulations.