Under the definition of “approved securities” in Section 5(a) of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, as substituted by the Banking Laws (Amendment) Act, 2013, the term means securities issued by the Central Government or any State Government, or:

Section 5(a), as substituted by Act 4 of 2013 with effect from 18 January 2013, defines “approved securities” to mean the securities issued by the Central Government or any State Government or such other securities as may be specified by the Reserve Bank from time to time. This open-ended formulation gives the RBI flexibility to designate additional instruments as approved securities, making the definition adaptive to evolving financial markets. The concept is directly relevant to the Statutory Liquidity Ratio maintained under Section 24, where banking companies are required to hold approved securities as part of their mandated liquid assets portfolio.