What changes from October 1: Interest on advances, gold metal loans, RBI cheque clearing norms and more

A series of crucial financial and regulatory changes is scheduled to be implemented from 1 October 2025. These decisions include the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) amendments to interest on advances, gold metal loans to Indian Railways, and tightening the online booking norms for Indian Railways passengers.

Key things that will change from October 2025

1. Interest rate on advances: India's banking regulator, the RBI, has allowed banks the freedom to decide the interest rate of floating-rate loans, which will benefit the borrowers sooner than the previous three-year limit.

The banks will also be able to provide their borrowers with the option to switch from a fixed interest rate setup to a floating interest rate setup at their discretion from 1 October.

2. Loans against gold/silver collateral: The RBI, in an official release, announced that they have amended a ‘carve-out’ for scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) to grant working capital loans to jewellers.

The banking regulator also allowed Tier 3 and Tier 4 Urban Co-operative Banks to grant working capital loans to borrowers who use gold as a raw material or input in their manufacturing or industrial processing activities, effective 1 October 2025.

3. Capital regulations on Perpetual Debt Instruments: The RBI also revised its eligibility limits for Perpetual Debt Instruments (PDIs), which are denominated in foreign currency or rupee-denominated bonds overseas. This move aims to provide banks with additional capital headroom to raise funds from their overseas markets, effective 1 October 2025.

4. Continuous cheque clearing: From 4 October 2025, the RBI will switch from batch to a continuous cheque clearing system, which means that the cheques will be cleared multiple times during a working day, instead of the current batch-wise system.

According to the RBI data, the central bank has also released four drafts open for industry and stakeholder comments until 20 October 2025, covering key proposals ranging from gold metal loans to credit information reporting.

5. Gold metal loans: The RBI proposed that the banks may now offer longer loan repayment tenors of up to 270 days, compared to the current 180-day period for gold metal loans, and also extend loans to the domestic non-manufacturers outsourcing the jewellery production.

6. Large Exposures Framework (LEF) and Intra-Group Exposures (ITE): The central bank also proposed that the foreign banks operating in India will have to clarify their exposure computation, risk mitigation, and linking thresholds to Tier-1 capital.

7. Credit information reporting: The RBI also aims to move to a weekly credit information reporting system to make sure that the credit information is up-to-date with provisions for faster data submission, error rectification, and CKYC data capture.

These amendments by the central bank aim to enhance the flexibility of banks, improve access to credit for borrowers, and ensure timely and accurate credit reporting within the financial system.

8. HDFC rules for Imperia customers: India's largest private sector bank, HDFC Bank, informed its customers that the new eligibility norms for the Imperia clients will apply from 1 October 2025. People who joined the programme on or before 30 June 2025 must meet the revised Total Relationship Value (TRV) criteria to retain their premium banking services.

9. PNB increases locker, service charges: Punjab National Bank increased its lockers and some service request charges for its customers effective 1 October 2025. The charges that will cost more now include locker fees, standing instruction failures, and nomination charges.

10. Indian Railways tightening online booking norms: From 1 October 2025, the Indian Railways booking platform IRCTC will implement new Aadhaar-based guidelines for booking general tickets online. The authorities aim to reduce the misuse of the reservation system by fraudulent agents.

11. YES Bank salary account fees: YES Bank customers who have their salary account with the private bank are set to face updated charges on their account services, including cash transactions, ATM withdrawals, debit card fees, and penalties for returning checks.

12. More expensive to use Speed Post? India Post will also revise its Speed Post charges from 1 October 2025, while implementing a new OTP-based delivery system for the security of the packages.

13. PFRDA revisions: The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has announced a set of updated fees for the Central Recordkeeping Agencies in charge of NPS and associated programmes, set to be effective from 1 October 2025.

Non-government subscribers will have more flexibility as they can invest up to 100% in stocks from the beginning of October.

14. NPS vs UPS deadline: The government employees had until Tuesday, 30 September 2025, to choose between the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) and the National Pension System (NPS), as after the deadline, no transitions between the two will be allowed.