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Practice area 10 of 13

Banking & Finance
under Indian law.

Lending and financial-services work in India sits across four regulators at once: the RBI for NBFC registration and net owned fund under s.45IA of the RBI Act, 1934 and for ECB reporting; SEBI for market conduct under ss.12A, 15G and 15HA of the SEBI Act, 1992; the NCLT for recovery under ss.7 and 9 of the IBC; and FEMA for FLA and overseas-investment reporting. The recovery clocks are Limitation Act articles 19, 21, 62 and 63.

Last reviewed: 19 August 2026 · every citation on this page names the dataset it came from

What's in this hub
  • 9governing provisions
  • 12product capabilities
  • 3free tools
  • 8limitation periods
  • 8compliance deadlines
  • 3audiences
Assembled from what LexVio actually ships. Nothing here is a roadmap item.
What this area covers

The regulatory perimeter comes first. Section 45IA of the RBI Act, 1934 prohibits any NBFC from commencing or carrying on non-banking financial business without RBI registration and the minimum net owned fund, and s.17 lists the business the Bank itself may transact. Entities with outstanding external commercial borrowings file the monthly ECB-2 return under the FEMA reporting framework and the ECB Master Direction; entities with FDI or overseas investment file the annual FLA return, and holders of ODI file the Annual Performance Report under Regulation 10 of the FEM (Overseas Investment) Regulations 2022.

Market conduct sits with SEBI. Section 11 of the SEBI Act, 1992 sets the Board's functions; s.12A prohibits manipulative and deceptive devices in connection with the issue, purchase or sale of any listed security; s.15G penalises insider trading at ₹25 crore or three times the profit, whichever is higher, and s.15HA does the same for fraudulent and unfair trade practices. Listed entities file quarterly and annual results under the SEBI LODR Regulations, 2015 through the Integrated Filing framework.

Recovery runs on two tracks. Under the IBC, a financial creditor applies under s.7 and an operational creditor under s.9, the moratorium under s.14 follows admission, and s.29A screens who may submit a resolution plan. Under the ordinary civil route the Limitation Act governs: three years to recover money lent under Article 19 or, where payable on demand, under Article 21 from the date of the loan; twelve years to enforce payment of mortgage money under Article 62; and thirty or twelve years for a mortgagee's foreclosure or possession under Article 63. Cheque dishonour under s.138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 remains the highest-volume recovery route of all.

Indian law that governs this

The provisions, with their section numbers.

Each row names the dataset it was taken from — the seeded statute library, the compliance calendar's own statutory reference, the bare Limitation Act, or the DPDP research set. Nothing here was written from memory.

Act
Provision
What it says
Source
The Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934
s.45IA
Requirement of registration and net owned fund
No NBFC may commence or carry on non-banking financial business without RBI registration and the minimum net owned fund.
Statute library
The Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934
s.17
Business which the Bank may transact
Lists the businesses the RBI may carry on — accepting deposits, dealing in securities, granting advances and the rest.
Statute library
The Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992
s.12A
Prohibition of manipulative and deceptive devices, insider trading
Prohibits use of any manipulative or deceptive device in connection with the issue, purchase or sale of a listed security.
Statute library
The Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992
ss.15G, 15HA
Penalty for insider trading; for fraudulent and unfair trade practices
₹25 crore or three times the profit made, whichever is higher, under each.
Statute library
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016
ss.7, 9, 14, 29A
CIRP initiation, moratorium and resolution-applicant eligibility
Financial creditor under s.7, operational creditor under s.9, moratorium on admission under s.14, and the s.29A eligibility bar.
Statute library
The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881
s.138
Dishonour of cheque for insufficiency of funds
Punishable with imprisonment up to two years or fine up to twice the cheque amount.
Statute library
The Limitation Act, 1963
Arts. 19, 21
Recovery of money lent; money lent payable on demand
Three years each — for money payable on demand, from the date of the loan, not the date of the demand.
Limitation Act dataset
The Limitation Act, 1963
Arts. 62, 63
Enforcing mortgage money; mortgagee's foreclosure or possession
Twelve years to enforce payment of mortgage money; thirty or twelve years for foreclosure or possession depending on the limb.
Limitation Act dataset
The Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999
ECB-2 / FLA / APR
Reporting under FEMA
Monthly ECB-2 for outstanding external commercial borrowings; annual FLA for entities with FDI or overseas investment; Annual Performance Report for ODI holders.
Compliance calendar
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Tools that apply to this work.

Each runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded anywhere, and none of them needs an account.

Free tool
Compliance Deadline Calendar

Every recurring statutory due date, month by month, each carrying its own citation.

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Free tool
Limitation Period Finder

Periods quoted from the bare Limitation Act, 1963, plus the arbitration, cheque-bounce, IBC and consumer deadlines.

Open tool →
Free tool
Interest & Late Fee Calculator

Interest under 234A/234B/234C, CGST s.50, TDS 201(1A) and the 234E fee, each with its citation.

Open tool →
Deadlines that end the claim

Limitation periods that bite here.

Quoted from the India Code bare Act. The period is only half the answer — the third column of the Schedule, the point from which time begins to run, is what actually decides the date. Each entry sets both out.

Art. 19
Recovery of money lent

Three years.

Art. 21
Money lent payable on demand

Three years.

Art. 62
Enforcing mortgage money

Twelve years.

Art. 63
Mortgagee's foreclosure or possession

(a) Thirty years; (b) Twelve years.

Art. 31
Bill or note payable at a fixed time

Three years.

Art. 42
Surety against the principal debtor

Three years.

NI Act ss.138/142
Cheque bounce complaint (s.138 NI Act)

Chained deadlines: presentation within the cheque's validity (or six months, whichever is earlier); written demand notice within thirty days of the bank's return memo; drawer's fifteen-day payment window; complaint within ONE MONTH of the cause of action arising — the delay in filing the complaint being condonable for sufficient cause.

IBC s.61(2)
IBC appeal to the NCLAT

Thirty days; condonable for sufficient cause by a further period 'not [to] exceed fifteen days' — a hard 45-day outer cap.

Inside LexVio

The capabilities that do this work.

Every one of these is a real feature page with its own status — Live, Beta or Soon. If it says Beta, it is in beta.

CapabilityLive
Regulator monitoring

SEBI, RBI, MCA/ROC, and GST circulars + filings tracked end-to-end.

CapabilityLive
Regulatory change feed

New circulars summarised and filterable by Act, regulator, and effective date.

CapabilityLive
Filing calendar

Every deadline that applies to your entity in one calendar, with advance alerts.

CapabilityLive
Contract scanner

Three-tier extraction cascade so PDF, DOCX, and scanned bilingual contracts all work.

CapabilityLive
Clause-level risk scoring

Red, amber, or green for every clause, with an explanation and confidence score.

CapabilityLive
Legal simulators

What-if engines for litigation and contracts — outcome odds, damages, settlement, cheque-bounce, tax, and AI negotiation roleplay.

CapabilityLive
Indian court research corpus

Judgments from SC, High Courts, NCLT, ITAT, CCI, DRT, and CESTAT.

CapabilityLive
Citation graph

See how cases cite each other — trace a doctrine forward and back.

CapabilityLive
Nexus — Clause coverage map

See which clauses are present, missing, or non-standard across your portfolio.

CapabilityLive
Insurance Policy Analyzer

Upload a policy and see what isn't covered — exclusions, sub-limits, deductibles, and the claims-notice window that voids the claim if you miss it.

CapabilityBeta
Cross-border tax

DTAA treaty analysis, transfer pricing flags, Form 15CA/CB requirements.

CapabilityLive
Activity audit log

A searchable record of state-changing actions across the workspace.

Where it lives

The modules this area draws on.

Module
Compliance AI

SEBI, RBI, MCA/ROC and GST monitoring with alerts ahead of every deadline.

Module
Legal AI

Contract review, AI redlining, court research, fix suggestions and the Legal Health Score.

Module
Global Layer

Cross-border research, foreign filings and multi-jurisdiction analysis.

Who this is for

The people who do banking & finance work.

Audience
Financial Institutions

AI-native SEBI, RBI and AMFI compliance.

Audience
Enterprise / MNC

Custom AI. Unlimited seats. Your data, your cloud.

Audience
CA / CS

AI for the contracts your clients keep sending you.

Recurring obligations

8 compliance deadlines touch this area.

These are the statutory dates, not the extended ones — there is no automatic carry-forward when a due date falls on a Sunday or a gazetted holiday, and regulators grant relief only by ad-hoc notification. Every row states who it applies to; almost none of them applies to every entity.

RBI1
  • ECB-2 — Monthly ECB return
FEMA2
  • FLA — Foreign Liabilities & Assets return
  • APR — Annual Performance Report (ODI)
SEBI5
  • SEBI LODR — Quarterly filings (Q4, Jan-Mar)
  • SEBI LODR — Quarterly filings (Q1, Apr-Jun)
  • SEBI LODR — Quarterly filings (Q2, Jul-Sep)
  • SEBI LODR — Quarterly filings (Q3, Oct-Dec)
  • SEBI LODR — Annual audited financial results (Reg 33)
Open the full compliance calendar →
Questions

Banking & Finance — the questions people actually ask.

When does limitation start on a loan repayable on demand?

From the date of the loan, not from the date you make the demand. That is Article 21 of the Limitation Act, 1963, and it catches lenders who assume the clock waits for them. Article 19 covers money lent generally, also three years. A written acknowledgment of liability signed before the period expires (s.18) or a part-payment acknowledged in the payer's own signed writing (s.19) gives a fresh period; an acknowledgment of an already-barred debt does not.

Which RBI and FEMA returns does the calendar carry?

The monthly ECB-2 return for entities with outstanding external commercial borrowings, under FEMA 1999 with the RBI Master Direction on reporting and the ECB Master Direction; the annual FLA return for every Indian entity with outstanding FDI or overseas investment; and the ODI Annual Performance Report under Regulation 10 of the FEM (Overseas Investment) Regulations 2022. Each row states who it applies to — none of them is universal.

Does LexVio monitor RBI and SEBI circulars?

Yes. Regulator monitoring tracks SEBI, RBI, MCA/ROC and GST circulars and filings end to end, and the regulatory change feed summarises new circulars and lets you filter by Act, regulator and effective date. Financial institutions are one of the ten audiences with a dedicated solutions page.

Can LexVio read a loan or facility agreement?

It reads any contract — the three-tier extraction cascade handles PDF, DOCX and scanned bilingual documents, clause-level risk scoring returns red, amber or green per clause with an explanation and confidence score, and the clause coverage map shows which clauses are missing or non-standard across a whole portfolio of facility documents rather than one at a time.

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A map of the material, not advice on your matter. These hubs point at statutory text, free calculators and product capabilities. They are not legal advice, they do not create an advocate-client relationship, and they are no substitute for reading the bare Act as currently amended. Indian law is fact- and state-specific — stamp duty, registration and several employment obligations vary by state, and limitation turns on facts a web page cannot know. Take advice on your own facts before acting.

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