HomeCirculars › RBI/2011-12/329

RBI Introduces 2-Year and 5-Year Interest Rate Futures

Current · Source: Reserve Bank of India · RBI/2011-12/329 · issued 30 Dec 2011 · ~2 min read
Quick answerRBI has expanded the exchange-traded Interest Rate Futures (IRF) product suite by adding contracts on 2-year and 5-year notional coupon-bearing GoI securities, effective December 30, 2011. Settlement yields will be determined via a FIMMDA-conducted polling process involving randomly selected Primary Dealers.
The rule, in the simplest words
How it plays out — a real example

A treasury officer in Indore, Priya, manages her bank's government bond portfolio. She sees that her bank has a big gap between short-term loans and long-term deposits, so she uses the new 2-year Interest Rate Futures to lock in a good rate for bonds maturing in about 2 years. On settlement day, she watches as FIMMDA polls 10 randomly chosen Primary Dealers three times, and the final price is set from the average of the middle yields, helping her hedge her risk smoothly.

What changed

RBI amended its earlier directions to permit IRF contracts on 2-year and 5-year notional coupon-bearing GoI securities, in addition to the existing 10-year and 91-day T-bill contracts. The final settlement price for these cash-settled contracts will be derived from yields of a basket of GoI securities, with yields determined through a structured polling process by FIMMDA involving Primary Dealers.

What it means for you

Banks and market participants now have more granular hedging tools for shorter-duration interest rate exposure, improving risk management across the yield curve. The polling-based settlement mechanism, with outlier rejection and multiple polling instances, aims to ensure fair and transparent price discovery, reducing manipulation risks. Lenders dealing in government securities can better align their hedging strategies with asset-liability mismatches in the 1.5-5.5 year maturity bucket.

What you must do

Who it affects

All market participants trading in interest rate derivatives, Primary Dealers registered with RBI, Banks and financial institutions with government securities portfolios, Stock exchanges offering IRF contracts

❓ Common questions

Regulatory timeline

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How is the final settlement yield determined for these new IRFs?

FIMMDA polls yields from ten randomly selected Primary Dealers at 11:00 AM, 11:30 AM, and 12:00 PM on the polling date. For each bond, the two highest and two lowest buy and sell yields are rejected as outliers. The simple average of the remaining yields (after rounding to four decimal places) becomes the settlement yield.

What are the residual maturity ranges for the underlying securities?

For the 2-year IRF, the basket includes GoI securities with residual maturity between 1.5 and 2.5 years. For the 5-year IRF, the range is 4.5 to 5.5 years. Residual maturity is calculated from the contract expiry date to the security's maturity date.

Are these directions still in effect?

No, these directions have been superseded by the Rupee Interest Rate Derivatives (Reserve Bank) Directions, 2019. However, the framework established here laid the foundation for current IRF market practices.

📜 Read the original circular — full text as issued by RBI
RBI/2011-12/329 IDMD.PCD.16 /14.03.01/2011-12 December 30, 2011 To All Market Participants Dear Sir/Madam Exchange-traded Interest Rate Futures Interest Rate Futures on 10-year notional coupon bearing Government of India (GoI) security and 91-Day Treasury Bills were introduced on August 28, 2009 and March 7, 2011 respectively. It has now been decided to introduce Interest Rate Futures (IRF) on 2-year and 5-year notional coupon bearing GoI securities in terms of Amendment Direction IDMD.PCD.15/ED(RG)-2011 dated December 30, 2011 issued by the Reserve Bank of India. 2. The final settlement price of the cash-settled 2-year and 5-year IRF contracts at the expiry of the contract period would be derived from the yields of the GoI securities in the underlying basket of securities identified by the Stock exchanges. In this regard, the yields of the GoI securities in the underlying basket would be determined through a polling process as indicated below: a. Polling shall be carried out by the Fixed Income, Money Market and Derivatives Association, i.e., FIMMDA; b. The yields of the GoI securities shall be polled from Primary Dealers (PDs) registered with the Reserve Bank of India; c. Polling would be conducted at three instances, i.e., 11.00 am, 11.30 am and 12.00 pm on the date of polling; d. Each poll shall involve ten PDs who would be selected at random from the universe of PDs; e. At each instance of polling, for each bond, out of the ten buy yields, two highest and two lowest yields would be treated as outliers and would be ignored. Similarly outliers from ten sell yields would be identified and ignored; f. After rejecting the outliers as indicated at (e) above, there will be (6 * 2 * 3 * Number of Bonds in Basket) number of remaining yields at the end of 3 polling; g. Average settlement yield (Ys) is the simple average of the remaining yields. Ys will be rounded off to 4 decimal digits; h. The Average settlement yield (Ys) of each GoI security and the yields polled by each participant would be disseminated by FIMMDA (at its website) immediately after the polling process is completed; i. The basket of GoI securities underlying the 2-year and 5-year IRF contracts shall be announced by the Stock Exchanges and the same shall be based on the following: The basket of GoI securities for the 2-year IRF contract shall comprise GoI securities with residual maturity ranging between 1.5 years and 2.5 years; The basket of GoI securities for the 5-year IRF contract shall comprise GoI securities with residual maturity ranging between 4.5 years and 5.5 years; The residual maturity of the securities for the purpose [indicated at (ii) and (iii) above] shall be the time period between the date of expiry of the IRF contract and the maturity date of the security. 3. The final settlement price of the underlying GoI securities as well as the IRF contracts shall be determined by the Stock Exchanges based on the guidelines issued by the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) from time to time. Yours faithfully ( Sanjay Hansda) Director & Officer-in-Charge Related Press Release/Notification
Reproduced for reference with acknowledgment — Source: Reserve Bank of India · RBI/2011-12/329 · issued 30 Dec 2011. The plain-English explanation above is BankPulse’s own independent summary.
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Who does what — compliance checklist
⚙️ Operations
  • Ensure your Primary Dealer desk is prepared to participate in FIMMDA polling for settlement yield determination.
💻 IT / Systems
  • Update internal trading and risk management systems to accommodate the new 2-year and 5-year IRF contracts.
📜 Compliance
  • Review hedging policies to incorporate these shorter-tenor IRFs for more precise interest rate risk coverage.
  • Coordinate with stock exchanges to understand the basket of securities and residual maturity criteria for each contract.
Grouped from the action items above — a single circular may involve more than one team.
Worked example & action-note template

Example: if you are an IT/Systems lead at a bank this circular applies to (All market participants trading in interest rate derivatives, Primary Dealers registered with RBI, Banks and financial institutions with government securities portfolios, Stock exchanges offering IRF contracts), your first concrete step on “RBI Introduces 2-Year and 5-Year Interest Rate Futures” is: “Update internal trading and risk management systems to accommodate the new 2-year and 5-year IRF contracts.” (RBI issued this 30 Dec 2011).

  1. Circular: RBI/2011-12/329 -- RBI Introduces 2-Year and 5-Year Interest Rate Futures
  2. Issued: 30 Dec 2011
  3. Action required: Update internal trading and risk management systems to accommodate the new 2-year and 5-year IRF contracts.
  4. Action required: Ensure your Primary Dealer desk is prepared to participate in FIMMDA polling for settlement yield determination.
  5. Action required: Review hedging policies to incorporate these shorter-tenor IRFs for more precise interest rate risk coverage.
  6. Action required: Coordinate with stock exchanges to understand the basket of securities and residual maturity criteria for each contract.
  7. Owner: ____________ Target date: ____________
  8. Board/committee approval needed? Y / N
  9. Evidence filed in compliance register on: ____________
Built only from this circular’s own published fields — not legal advice; always confirm against the official RBI source.

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Official RBI source: https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=6911&Mode=0 — Plain-English summary by BankPulse (bankpulse.ai), reviewed by our expert reviewer, CA Amit Jain. Independent platform, not affiliated with the Reserve Bank of India; is our own plain-English paraphrase, not RBI’s original wording.
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