This page is informational and is not legal advice. It describes rules, orders and rulings as published or reported on the dates shown; read the primary text before relying on any of it.
A regional rural bank (RRB) is a bank set up under the Regional Rural Banks Act, 1976 to serve a defined rural area. It is not a co-operative: as the 2025 notifications set out, its share capital is held by the Central Government, the state government and a sponsor bank, a larger commercial bank that backs it. Karnataka Grameena Bank, for example, is sponsored by Canara Bank, and the 2025 notification that created it sets out the shares held by each of the three.
An RRB is a licensed bank. The Reserve Bank's directions to these banks apply to every RRB "licensed to operate in India by the Reserve Bank of India", and DICGC states that regional rural banks are insured by it. So a daily deposit with an RRB is a bank deposit, covered up to the insured limit, which is not true of a deposit with a credit co-operative society.
RRBs matter for daily deposits because some of them run one: Karnataka Grameena Bank's New Nithya Nidhi Deposit and Kerala Gramin Bank's Daily Deposit are both RRB products. They can also change shape: the Central Government can merge RRBs by notification under section 23A of the Act, and in 2025 it did so state by state; our guide to what happens when your bank merges explains what that means for an account.