Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) don’t want to let go of the opportunity to earn higher returns of about 6.00 to 7.50 per cent from Foreign Currency Non-Resident (Bank) deposits of 3-5 years duration, going by RBI’s latest forex inflow data.
This is underscored by the fact that they parked a whopping $65.397 billion in just 75 days (from June 8, 2026 to August 21, 2026) in these deposits.
And the inflows are gathering pace as the RBI has cut short the deadline to offer concessional swap facility for fresh FCNR-B deposits mobilised by banks by a month to August 31, 2026.
These inflows are also being aided, to an extent, by leverage being provided by banks to their NRI customers. The proceeds of the leverage are, in turn, being parked with the Banks. Banks have raised $4.860 billion via the Overseas Foreign Currency Borrowing (OFCB) route in the June 8, 2026 to August 21, 2026 period.
With just nine days remaining for the aforementioned facility, which is being provided by RBI to encourage banks to mop up fresh FCNR-B deposits so that the resulting inflows can address the volatility in the Rupee, to end, market experts expect the inflows to touch about $80 billion under via this route.
And the latest RBI data bears this out — Banks mobilised $13.097 billion in the eight days ending August 21st against $15.575 billion in the preceding 13 days (between August 1 to August 13, 2026).
Since RBI introduced a special USD-INR Forex Swap facility covering FCNR(B) deposits, ECB and OFCB inflows on June 08, 2026, overall forex inflows amounted to $72.848 billion.
Saumya Kanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Advisor, SBI, noted that while there may be valid reasons to justify an early closure, the most likely reason could be that the target for FCNR (B) mobilization has already been achieved.
He assessed that the total collections under the FCNR-B deposit route could be around $85 billion. Further, the balance of payments will be in surplus of around $50 billion with the Current Account Deficit at 1 per cent of GDP.
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