Reserve Bank of India

The Reserve Bank's two-pronged approach of allowing market players freedom to operate on the basis of market signals while threatening stern measures against excessive arbitraging between markets has achieved a profound transformation of the profile of the money market.

.

The mid-term review of the monetary and credit policy for the current year springs no major surprises. It has, in the main, lowered the Bank rate by 50 basis points to 6.5 per cent and proposes to bring down, over the next two months, the cash reserve ratio to 5.5 per cent from the current effective rate (taking into account various exemptions and variable reserve ratios for particular segments of liabilities) of 6.3 per cent for the banking system as a whole. It has made further refinements of the various processes of strengthening prudential regulation of the banking system. More pertinently, it serves to highlight the constraints within which monetary policy operates in India, even going to the extent of drawing explicit reference to some of the structural impediments arising from government policy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the choice of location of prudential supervision of banks. Should central banks assume this role or should there be a unified regulator covering all financial institutions? With the growing concern among central banks about the need to maintain financial stability, can such problems be effectively tackled if regulation/ supervision is vested with the central banks? The evidence.