‘RBI wants opinion of stakeholders during policy announcement’

NEW DELHI: Reserve Bank of India's Governor Shaktikanta Das on Saturday said whenever a policy is taken or any announcement is made by the central bank, there would be some amount of advance consultation with stakeholders.

The Governor was speaking at a joint conference of the central bank and the Finance Ministry held after the address of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to the Central Board of Directors of RBI in the customary post-Budget meeting on Saturday.

Union Ministers of State for Finance Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad and Pankaj Chaudhary were also present during the interaction with mediapersons.

Governor Shaktikanta Das said, "Even in the last Monetary Policy Committee announcement, we have made an announcement relating to penal interest."

There too, he said RBI also made an announcement of draft circular. He said, "We are not issuing the final circular because we want the opinion of the stakeholders: The regulated entities and the banks and any other players in the financial market."

The governor also said the central bank is already doing it but there were certain announcements which are of strategic nature which have got arbitraries and other issues involved.

After the issuance of a circular, he said that the need for correction and amendment of a policy will be significantly reduced. The Governor said the RBI is already consulting on quite a number of cases. He said there is an advance consultation.

"We also launch a discussion paper." In the last announcement of the monetary policy statement, RBI announced these climate-related steps. "Based on the discussion paper and the inputs we received, we have announced three measures in the last monetary policy statement and other measures will follow," the Governor said.

On the timeline for regulatory application, the RBI Governor said whenever there is an application in order to start a bank or non-banking finance company (NBFC), fit and proper check would have to be done.

The Governor said, "We need to get inputs from the regulators and various agencies within the country and if it has an external presence, we would have to get inputs from the regulator and the agencies from abroad. That takes time. That is the process which we constantly try to impress upon the other country's regulators. We don't get the inputs sometimes.’’