In December 2025, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced that 3 Indian banks namely, the State Bank of India (SBI), India’s largest Public Sector Bank (PSB); HDFC Bank Limited; and ICICI Bank Limited, will continue to be identified as Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs) for 2025 under the same bucketing structure as in the 2024 list of D-SIBs.
- As per RBI directions, SBI is required to maintain an additional Common Equity Tier-1 (CET-1) capital buffer of 0.80% of its Risk-Weighted Assets (RWAs).
- HDFC Bank Limited and ICICI Bank Limited must maintain an additional CET-1 of 0.40% and 0.20% of their RWAs, respectively.
- The current update of D-SIBs list is based on the data collected from banks as on March 31, 2025.
Exam Hints:
- What? Announcement of D-SIBs List for 2025
- Announced by: RBI
- Banks Classified as D-SIBs: SBI, HDFC Bank Limited, and ICICI Bank Limited
- CET-1 Requirement: SBI (0.80%); HDFC Bank (0.40%) and ICICI Bank (0.20%)
- D-SIB Framework Introduced in: July 2014 (later, updated in December 2023)
- Key Indicators For Classification: Size, Complexity, Substitutability and Interconnectedness
About D-SIBs:
Background: In July 2014, RBI 1st issued the ‘Framework for dealing with Domestic-Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs)’ which was later updated on December 28, 2023.
Conditions: Under D-SIB framework, it is mandatory for RBI to disclose the list of banks designated as D-SIBs (starting from 2015) and classify these banks in appropriate buckets based on their Systemic Importance Scores (SIS).
- Further, CET 1 requirements for D-SIB include an additional CET-1 capital surcharge above the standard Basel-III requirements, which depends upon the bucket in which the bank is placed.
Key Indicators: RBI classifies the banks as D-SIBs that are considered ‘Too Big to Fail (TBTF)’, based on their size, complexity, substitutability (including total value and volume of payments made in Indian currency (Rupee)) and interconnectedness with the financial system.
Classification: SBI was the Indian bank to be designated as D-SIB in 2015; followed by ICICI Bank (2016) and HDFC Bank Limited (2017).
How D-SIBs are Selected and Assessed: The D-SIBs will be selected by RBI based on the size of the bank as a percentage of GDP(Gross Domestic Product) i.e the banks having a size beyond 2% of GDP.
- The selected D-SIBs are assessed through the 4 indicators of Size, Interconnectedness, Lack of readily available substitutes or financial institution infrastructure, and Complexity
G-SIB: For foreign banks which have their branch presence in India are termed as Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB). These banks are required to maintain additional CET1 capital surcharge in India as applicable to it as a G-SIB, which is directly proportional to its RWAs in India.
About Reserve Bank of India (RBI):
Governor- Sanjay Malhotra
Headquarters- Mumbai, Maharashtra
Established- April 01, 1935
