Nifty Bank tumbled 2.5%, with private lenders Axis Bank, Kotak, and IndusInd leading the rout with 3% losses, while ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and SBI fell around 2% each. The selloff came even as the rupee surged nearly 1% to 93.85 per dollar, recovering from Friday’s record low of 94.84, after the RBI tightened limits on banks’ foreign exchange positions.
The central bank’s directive, effective April 10, caps banks’ net open positions in the rupee at $100 million at the end of each business day, forcing lenders to dismantle massive arbitrage trades estimated at $25-50 billion.
“Every Rs 1/USD dual movement in INR on $30-40 billion of book can lead to a one-time loss of Rs 30-40 billion for the banking sector,” warned Prakhar Sharma and Vinayak Agarwal of Jefferies, who estimate gross onshore positions at $30-40 billion, dominated by major lenders including SBI, ICICI, HDFC, Axis, and leading foreign banks.
The analysts flagged that unwinding positions by April 10 may lead to MTM losses in the fourth quarter. “This may have an impact on banks’ profit in 4QFY26 as they may need to take MTM hit on March 31, 2026,” they wrote, adding that the sector has sought leniency from the RBI.
Traders said if the gap between rupee-dollar rates in the offshore non-deliverable forwards market and the onshore market widens to Re 1 during unwinding, banks could face losses of up to Rs 4,000 crore. These losses could be reflected in banks’ books for the current fiscal year, as they had earlier calculated open positions after netting off hedged trades in the NDF market.The potential hit stems from how banks structured their forex operations. “The normal trade is for banks to buy US$ in the onshore market (at a lower premium) and sell or square off in the offshore market (at a higher premium) to generate a spread and build depth in the market,” the Jefferies analysts explained. The spread had widened significantly amid volatility and the rupee’s fall on heightened risk aversion and oil-driven pressures linked to the Iran war.Banks are lobbying for relief. “Our conversations with banks indicate that RBI is considering some leniency that may include grandfathering of existing contracts and applying limits on new contracts,” the Jefferies analysts wrote. “It may also consider extending the time limit from April 10 to a further date to smoothen forex movement and MTM impact on banks.”
Most large and mid-sized banks with net open positions exceeding $100 million are expected to sell dollars to comply with the directive, triggering a wave of onshore dollar selling as they rush to cut arbitrage positions.
But prominent fund manager Samir Arora dismissed the panic. “Just relax about this supposed Rs 4,000 crore loss on FX unwinding,” he tweeted. “Just in the past month the INR has depreciated by over 4%. All these positions would not have been set up for the first time at the Friday, March 27 close. These banks would be in the money big time till now (which equity markets did not know or account for), and now they will give up some of those profits. Big deal.”
Arora suggested foreign banks may bear much of the impact: “Some of the bigger positions may have been taken by more aggressive foreign banks (like Citi etc), who knows, but we do not care beyond a point for them as far as our market is concerned.”
The Jefferies analysts noted that appreciation of the rupee in the NDF market may lead to profits for hedge funds and foreign banks in the forex derivative markets, a reversal that could benefit offshore players even as Indian banks take losses.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views, and opinions given by experts are their own. These do not represent the views of the Economic Times)
