Size Of RBI Balancesheet Up 20.6% In FY26 Vs 8.2% In FY25 Amid A 66% Rise In Gold Value | CNBC TV18

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]RBI's annual report for FY 26 is out and it shows that the balance sheet of the RBI grew by 20.6% much more than the 8.2% growth in FY 25.

[00:00:10]Where else did the RBI spend more or make more money? Lat Venkatesh is here to decode those details for us. Lata?

[00:00:17]>> The RBI's balance sheet is a very esoteric, difficult to understand one and we only look at it to know how much money they printed. You know, how many of which of their investments made money for them because they invest in foreign securities, Indian bonds, gold, etc. So, those are the teeny weeny details.

[00:00:32]Balance sheet grew much more. It grew by 20.6 as you said versus only 8.2% growth in FY 25. Now, what was the one reason it grew so much? No prizes for guessing, gold. Gold revaluation was much higher.

[00:00:46]Gold revaluation rose by 66% in FY 26.

[00:00:50]The year before it had risen by only 15%. They also printed more notes. The notes in circulation increased by 11.8%.

[00:00:57]Last year it had that is FY 25 had increased by only 6%. Expenditure also grew 102%.

[00:01:03]Why? Last year it had grown only by 7%.

[00:01:06]Why did it grow? Because they set aside a huge 1.09 lakh crore for contingency.

[00:01:12]So, better part of my explanation is why was the contingency fund higher? Okay, actually the Reserve Bank lowered the amount in the the percentage in the contingency fund. They have the liberty to keep the contingency fund at 4 and 1/2 to 7 and 1/2 percent of the total balance sheet. They can choose the number. Last year they had kept it at 7 and 1/2 percent. This year they actually brought it down in FY 26 to 6 and 1/2.

[00:01:38]So, contingency fund should go down you would think but no, they had to transfer 1.09 lakh crore. Whereas the year before they had transferred only 44,000 crore.

[00:01:46]Why did they have to transfer? Because the investments in the contingency fund shrank. Why did it shrink? Because the and I I give you that break up. Foreign securities were they lost because of the mark to market, they lost 90,000 crores.

[00:02:02]On Indian bonds, they lost 30,000 crores. And on forward contracts, they had to you know the mark to market valuation gave them a a charge of 43,000 crore. If you looked at last year, the year before, they did make losses on the foreign securities.

[00:02:18]See, you make losses because when interest rates rise, prices of bonds fall. So, that is how they've made you know losses. They did not make any losses the year before on Indian bonds, and they had not entered into forward contracts. Now, we know the RBI does a lot of forward sales this year, and those have to be marked to market. That is where this another 43,000 crore of losses come. And because the contingency fund shrank, they had to transfer 1.09 lakh crore. That explains why the expenditure went up. And just a few more things, these are promises that the Reserve Bank makes in its annual report what it will do next year, uh that is this year. It is going to expand its central bank digital currency pilots a little more. That is interesting. They are going to increase tokenization of financial assets. Again, that can be interesting. You know, imagine if land records are tokenized, it would be a very big forward step. And finally, this is very important, the monetary policy department has promised to review and improve its GDP growth forecasting. That's interesting.

[00:03:19]>> Interesting indeed. Lata, thank you for uh summarizing the key takeaways from uh the RBI annual report. By the way, for the fall >> For over 25 years, CNBC TV18 has been the guiding force for investors, steering them through the markets.

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