RBI issues consolidated norms for Special Rupee Vostro Accounts and trade | Finance News
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday issued a consolidated circular on Special Rupee Vostro Accounts (SRVAs), rationalising instructions spread across five earlier circulars issued between July 2022 and October 2025.
The latest circular, issued in supersession of the previous ones, allows authorised dealer (AD) banks in India to open SRVAs for their overseas branches or banks resident outside India under the Foreign Exchange Management (Deposit) Regulations, 2016.
The RBI reiterated that settlement of cross-border trade transactions through SRVAs remains an additional arrangement for invoicing, payment and settlement of exports and imports in rupees, alongside all permissible current and capital account transactions under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). AD banks maintaining SRVAs have also been permitted to open an additional current account for exporters and importers exclusively for the settlement of trade transactions.
The central bank said SRVAs may be funded through inward remittances or transfers from other repatriable rupee accounts, with proceeds from permissible current and capital account transactions also eligible to be held in these accounts. Investments in debt instruments out of SRVA balances will continue to be governed by the RBI’s Master Direction on Non-resident Investment in Debt Instruments.
AD banks have been asked to update details of SRVAs held by overseas correspondent banks periodically in the SRVA directory published by the Foreign Exchange Dealers’ Association of India (FEDAI).
First Published: Jul 17 2026 | 9:26 PM IST
