3 min readMumbaiFeb 11, 2026 09:23 PM IST
In a move aimed at curbing mis-selling, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday proposed that banks and other regulated entities should obtain explicit customer consent before offering any financial products and services, and compensate them for any instance of mis-selling, as part of draft guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct. The RBI has sought public comments on these draft proposals. The final directions will come into effect from July 1, 2026.
While suggesting that banks should refund the entire amount to customers in cases where mis-selling of a product or service is established, the norms also stated that customers must be compensated for any losses incurred. The guidelines include norms for advertising, marketing as well as sales of financial products and services by regulated entities (REs).
Under the proposed framework, RBI regulator barred lenders from deploying any dark patterns — any practice or deceptive design pattern using user interface or user experience interactions designed to mislead or trick users — which could create a sense of urgency and coerce customers into making an immediate purchase of products or services.
“A bank shall ensure that its user interfaces do not deploy any dark pattern. User interfaces deployed by the bank shall be subject to user testing and periodic internal audit for identification of any unfair features, including dark patterns,” the draft guidelines stated.
A lender should put in place a comprehensive policy for advertising, marketing and sales of its own as well as third-party financial products or services. The policy added that lenders should ensure their policies and practices neither create incentives for mis-selling nor encourage employees or direct selling agents (DSAs) to ‘push’ the sale of products or services.
“No incentive is directly or indirectly received by the employees engaged in marketing or sales of third-party products or services from the third-party,” it said.
Lenders should not bundle the sale of any third-party product or service with any of its own product or service.
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In circumstances where the sale of their own product or service depends on the purchase of a third-party product or service, the customer should have the option to purchase the product from another company or agent.
The proposed norms also warn REs against funding the purchase of a product or service via loans without securing the customer’s explicit consent.
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