RBI proposes adding corporate bonds in banks' HTM category
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday proposed allowing banks to keep corporate bonds, or even equity shares of subsidiaries, associates and joint ventures in the held-to-maturity category (HTM) of their investment books.
An investment in the HTM category doesn’t require to be valued at the current market price, and therefore, banks do not have to incur mark-to-market losses if the current prices of the instruments dip in the market.
Earlier, only government and state government securities, and certain securities by infrastructure companies were allowed in the HTM category. Also, banks were not allowed to keep more than 25 per cent of their total investments in this category.