A glossary of the acronyms you'll run into most often across banking, investing, and tax in India.
Banking & payments
| IFSC | Indian Financial System Code — identifies a bank branch for electronic transfers |
| NEFT | National Electronic Funds Transfer |
| RTGS | Real Time Gross Settlement |
| IMPS | Immediate Payment Service |
| UPI | Unified Payments Interface |
| KYC | Know Your Customer |
| CKYC | Central KYC Registry |
| NBFC | Non-Banking Financial Company |
| MICR | Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (the code line on a cheque) |
Investing
| SIP | Systematic Investment Plan |
| NAV | Net Asset Value (of a mutual fund unit) |
| AMC | Asset Management Company (mutual funds) or Annual Maintenance Charge (demat) — context-dependent |
| DP | Depository Participant |
| NSDL / CDSL | National / Central Depository Services Ltd. — India's two securities depositories |
| ISIN | International Securities Identification Number |
| F&O | Futures & Options |
| STCG / LTCG | Short-Term / Long-Term Capital Gains |
| NPS | National Pension System |
| EPF | Employees' Provident Fund |
Tax
| PAN | Permanent Account Number |
| TDS | Tax Deducted at Source |
| TCS | Tax Collected at Source |
| ITR | Income Tax Return |
| AY / FY | Assessment Year / Financial Year (AY is the year following FY, when the FY's income is assessed) |
| GST | Goods and Services Tax |
| CGST / SGST / IGST | Central / State / Integrated GST |
| HRA | House Rent Allowance |
| AIS | Annual Information Statement |
Regulators
See the Regulator Directory for RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA, and the rest, spelled out.
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