RBI Forms Financial Markets Committee; Ridham Desai, Ananth Narayan Named

The RBI has set up a Technical Consultative Committee for Financial Markets and appointed seven external experts as members, including Ridham Desai of Morgan Stanley India and former SEBI member Ananth Narayan. The RBI financial markets committee, announced on November 4, 2026, will advise the central bank on the money, government securities and foreign exchange markets, their derivatives and the related market infrastructure.

The panel will be chaired by the Deputy Governor in charge of the RBI’s Financial Markets Regulation Department, a portfolio currently held by Rohit Jain. It will meet at least once a quarter, according to reports on the RBI’s announcement.

Who is on the RBI financial markets committee

The external members include representatives from banks, a market association, market infrastructure and academia. Among them are Ananth Narayan, a former whole-time member of SEBI who is now Professor of Practice at IIT Bombay, and Ridham Desai, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley India.

They are joined by Shamsher Singh, Chairman of the Fixed Income Money Market and Derivatives Association of India (FIMMDA) and Deputy Managing Director of State Bank of India. The other Indian bankers are Neeraj Gambhir, Executive Director at Axis Bank, and Shailendra Jhingan, Head of Treasury and Economic Research at ICICI Bank.

Aditya Bagree, Managing Director and Head of Markets at Citibank India, brings a foreign bank’s view. The panel also includes Nand Kishore, Managing Director of the Clearing Corporation of India Ltd (CCIL), who represents the clearing and settlement side of the market.

What the panel will examine

The committee will have a broad scope of work. It will look at how the money, government bond and forex markets function, including their efficiency, liquidity and resilience, and recommend measures to deepen and widen these markets.

It will also review trading, clearing, settlement and reporting systems, along with the regulatory and operational frameworks for market infrastructure. Another task is to flag problems in implementing RBI measures, including any unintended frictions they create in the markets.

The panel will discuss domestic and international developments, financial innovation and emerging risks for Indian markets. The RBI may also refer specific market issues or macroeconomic developments to the committee for its views.

The RBI first proposed the committee in its Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies on October 7, 2026, describing it as a forum for structured engagement with market participants and stakeholders. The same statement announced interoperability among account aggregators, which the RBI expects to put in place by the end of 2026.

That statement was issued alongside the central bank’s October policy review. Read our earlier report on the RBI’s October repo rate decision for the monetary policy backdrop.

Why the new panel matters for India Inc

The new RBI financial markets committee gives market participants a formal, regular channel to the central bank. That could give banks, corporate treasuries and investors a clearer way to raise concerns before rules take effect.

For Indian companies, the markets under review matter directly. Corporate treasuries use forex derivatives to hedge import and export exposure, and borrowing costs move with money market rates and government bond yields, so changes in how these markets work feed through to balance sheets. The RBI’s recent moves in this area are covered in our report on the RBI’s curbs on FX derivatives.

The mix of members is also notable. With representatives of SBI, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Citibank India and CCIL sitting alongside a Morgan Stanley India managing director and a former SEBI member, the panel brings together large market participants and the infrastructure behind them.

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The RBI has not announced any specific regulatory changes linked to the committee, and no deadline for recommendations has been reported. The date of its first meeting has also not been disclosed, though the committee’s advice is expected to inform the central bank’s future policy decisions.