The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 09 January 2019 has changed its Gold Monetisation Scheme (GMS), 2015 to make charitable institutions and the government entities eligible to deposit under the scheme.

In addition to existing resident individual (Individuals, HUFs, Proprietorship & Partnership firms, Trusts including Mutual Funds/Exchange Traded Funds registered under SEBI (Mutual Fund) Regulations and Companies), the scheme is now extended to charitable institutions, Central Government, State Government or any other entity owned by Central Government or State Government.

The government had launched the GMS in 2015 to mobilise the gold held by households and institutions in the country. The scheme allows banks' customers to deposit their idle gold holdings for a fixed period in return for interest in the range of 2.25-2.50%.

Joint deposits of two or more eligible depositors are also allowed under the scheme and the deposit in such case shall be credited to the joint deposit account opened in the name of such depositors. The existing rules regarding joint operation of bank deposit accounts including nominations will be applicable to these gold deposits.