The Consolidated Account Statement, or CAS, has long stitched together a citizen’s demat holdings and eligible mutual‑fund folios under one PAN‑linked view, yet it has excluded bank deposits, leaving investors to juggle separate statements for cash and securities. The new directive resolves that gap by permitting SEBI‑regulated depositories to publish deposit‑account details via NBFC account aggregators, bringing fixed and recurring deposits into the same ledger.
—Interoperability is the engine behind the change. By allowing any NBFC‑based aggregator of a customer’s choice to pull data from banks and depositories, the RBI is effectively democratizing data access. "This framework will let customers see all their financial assets in one place," said RBI spokesperson Sanjay Malhotra during the October 7 press briefing.
The benefit is twofold. First, investors can instantly gauge how much of their wealth sits idle in fixed deposits versus market‑linked securities, a metric that can inform rebalancing. Second, the unified statement will ease reconciliation with tax filings, helping users spot discrepancies between bank interest and Form 26AS entries. Adhil Shetty, CEO of Bankbazaar, noted, "Having FD balances in the same screen as stocks means you can spot unfamiliar deposits that may need scrutiny, all without opening a separate bank app."
Implementation will roll out in stages. RBI will issue detailed guidelines by mid‑November, and SEBI will coordinate with depositories to map bank‑account fields into the CAS schema. The operational launch is slated for December 31, 2026, with a pilot phase in select depositories to validate data integrity.
For everyday investors, the change translates into a single monthly statement that replaces the clutter of multiple bank and brokerage PDFs. A small family in Jaipur, who had been juggling three separate statements, said they now feel "in control" of their finances after the first CAS release.
The RBI’s move aligns with a broader push toward financial inclusion, as banks seek to embed their products into a unified digital framework. The next step will involve regulators finalizing the data mapping rules, after which investors can opt‑in to the new CAS format and start receiving consolidated statements in January 2027.