Bank holiday today: RBI keeps agency banks open for year-end transactions

Banks across several states are officially closed on Tuesday on account of Mahavir Jayanti, but select branches will remain operational after the Reserve Bank of India directed agency banks to stay open to handle crucial financial year-end transactions.

March 31 marks the last day of the financial year 2025–26, making it a key deadline for government receipts and payments. In a directive issued earlier, the RBI asked all agency banks — lenders authorised to handle government business — to keep their branches dealing with such transactions open, even if it is a public holiday in their respective states.

“The Government of India has made a request to keep all branches of the banks dealing with government receipts and payments open for transactions on March 31, 2026… so as to account for all the government transactions… in the financial year 2025–26 itself,” the central bank said in its February 3 statement.

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Agency banks typically include major public and private sector lenders that facilitate tax collections, pension payments and other government-related transactions. However, operations on Tuesday will be restricted strictly to government business, with regular customer services likely to remain unavailable in most locations.

Banks were otherwise scheduled to remain closed in several states — including Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand — in observance of Mahavir Jayanti.

Trading on India’s stock exchanges — the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange — remains suspended on Tuesday.

All segments, including equities, equity derivatives, securities lending and borrowing (SLB), currency derivatives and interest rate derivatives, are closed for the day.

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In the commodities space, trading in derivatives will remain shut during the morning session but will reopen for the evening session, in line with the exchanges’ holiday schedule.

Normal trading across segments will resume on Wednesday, April 1.