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Informist, Friday, Mar. 6, 2026

 

By Cassandra Carvalho

 

MUMBAI - The Reserve Bank of India has delayed the publication of auction details to standalone and integrated-bank primary dealerships on its Core Banking Solution platform 'e-Kuber', according to bond market dealers. This has reduced the market makers' ability to get a broader perspective on the auction results before other market participants and formulate trading strategies for a competitive edge over the rest of the market, they said.

 

The RBI used to provide primary dealerships with an 'Auction Summary Report' after publishing the cut-offs for auctions for government bonds, Treasury bills, and state government securities on its website. The report, which had information on weighted average prices, number of bids received and accepted, and quantum of bids received and accepted, was accessible to PDs before the data was published on the RBI website. While the PDs can still access weighted average prices based on their successful bids, the same as other market participants, e-Kuber now only loads the 'Auction Summary Report' after the full auction summary is uploaded on the RBI website, dealers said.

 

"It (full auction details) has been stopped for the past one month," a dealer at a standalone primary dealership said. "They're not displaying any auction summary report for the past one month for any primary auction. We're able to see all the allotments and all the details regarding our bids, but nothing about the market (market-wide) summary. We just have to wait for the RBI press release."

 

Others said the summary report has not been loading for them since January. In the case of devolvement on underwriters, the summary report allowed PDs to make better decisions about what prices to offload the securities in the secondary market before the rest of the market had all the details of the auction result.

 

Traders speculated that the early availability of this information to only some market participants had prompted the RBI discontinue primary dealers' access to this data. Primary dealers have not received any communication from the central bank on the discontinuation. Some primary dealers have reached out to the RBI and the Clearing Corp. of India, which hosts the central bank's gilt trading platforms, regarding this. The RBI did not respond to queries on whether it had stopped providing this data to PDs due to a technical issue or if it was part of a new practice it would follow.

 

"I don't know if it's a technical issue or what, but it's good that the market comes to know immediately what is the weighted average and the market can take a call on T-bills, on other factors, decisions like in state loans where the variation is huge," a dealer at another standalone primary dealership said. "It's good to know exactly where the cut-off is, what the tail is. But if A section is getting it and B section is not, then it's asymmetric."  End

 

With inputs from Aaryan Khanna and Janwee Prajapati

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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