Murmu sets NBFC supervisory focus as credit hits 16.7 percent of GDP
Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Shirish Chandra Murmu outlined five supervisory priorities for non-banking financial companies at the NBFC and HFC Summit in Mumbai on September 3, 2026. Murmu warned that sector growth must not compromise credit underwriting standards.
Expanding footprints across credit channels
Non-banking financial company credit expanded to 16.7 percent of nominal GDP, rising from 15.9 percent a year earlier, and now equals 27 percent of credit extended by commercial banks.
Deputy Governor Shirish Chandra Murmu noted that non-bank lenders have evolved into specialised partners covering critical MSME and last-mile funding gaps.
Lenders increasingly leverage digital infrastructure, including Aadhaar, UPI, Account Aggregators, and the Unified Lending Interface, to shift toward cash-flow-based assessment.
Murmu identified five structural focus areas: governance, liquidity risk, asset quality, customer conduct, and cyber resilience.
“Growth must never come at the cost of underwriting standards,” Murmu said.
Calibrating the regulatory architecture
The remarks follow a multi-year supervisory overhaul initiated after past liquidity shocks.
The RBI instituted liquidity risk rules in November 2019, phased liquidity coverage ratios in 2020, and a four-layer Scale Based Regulation in October 2021.
In November 2025, the central bank consolidated all entity regulations into master directions.
Recent supervisory adjustments include lowered risk weights for infrastructure lending, capital calculation reliefs, and registration exemptions for non-public entities with assets below ₹1,000 crore.
Speed cannot outrun solvency
The RBI signals that non-bank credit cannot expand on weak underwriting and volatile wholesale funding.
Rapid digital distribution widens systemic exposure if risk controls fail to keep pace.
Boards must now prove their governance is robust enough to survive faster growth.