India Revamps Trade Reporting System, Including Offshore Rupee

India’s central bank-supervised clearinghouse is making changes to its trade reporting system to bring it more in line with global standards and to make it easier for lenders to disclose their offshore rupee trades, according to people familiar with the matter.

The overhaul by the Clearing Corp. of India Ltd. started earlier this year and comes as regulators have stepped up monitoring of the currency and lenders to report their offshore rupee transactions, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

The revamp is aimed at allowing more details of trades to be reported and to create a more uniform format aligned with standards used elsewhere, the people said. The clearinghouse is updating its trade repository to add new fields that will better capture bespoke and customized derivatives, they said.

India has taken a to stabilize the rupee after it weakened on rising oil prices driven by the Iran war. The rules on offshore reporting — which the Reserve Bank of India says will boost transparency and price discovery — have faced from banks, which warn that the requirements may breach client confidentiality and force major system changes.

At the same time, regulators have been on arbitrage trades and local banks from offering some non-deliverable derivatives.

The CCIL hosts trading platforms for Indian government bonds and already collects data on some offshore currency trades. There is no explicit timeline for the new system, the people said. The clearinghouse didn’t immediately respond to a request seeking comment.