RBI’s new regulatory framework relies on significant self-policing
Shaktikanta Das, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, deviated from his prepared speech while delivering the keynote address at Mint’s recent BFSI Summit and provided a couple of interesting asides. The governor’s office, he said, had been encouraging one-on-one discussions with bank chief executives and a spirit of free exchange had allowed RBI to pick up industry trends that would have otherwise reached the central bank much later. Consequently, the central bank’s regulatory actions were occasionally based on such inputs.
Das also mentioned in passing that many bankers had been complaining to him about the ever-increasing RBI-imposed regulatory and compliance burden. These two digressions, taken in conjunction with his speech, provide pointers to the central bank’s evolving regulatory architecture. Specifically, Governor Das’s stewardship is attempting to make regulation functional at two elementary levels: encourage self-regulation at both the entity level and industry level.
The understanding is that since both the entity and industry collective have more knowledge and information than the regulator, pre-emptive actions at these stages will be more timely and effective. Both, though, might need some rethinking and reformatting. RBI’s focused attention on action at the first level is evident from Das’s past refrains about the corporate governance gap in banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs).
This theme was evident even at the BFSI Summit. If, by and large, banks are able to tighten their governance hatches and keep the information pipeline between senior management and board members open, there is a possibility that the board-level committees will be able to stave off emergent risks and crises. However,
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