The Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India met today at Mumbai. Dr. D. Subbarao, Governor, Reserve Bank of India chaired the meeting. Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Shri Kiran Karnik, Prof. M.V. Rajeev Gowda, Dr. Nachiket M. Mor, Shri Y.H. Malegam, Shri Azim Premji, Prof. Dipankar Gupta, Shri G.M. Rao, Ms. Ela Bhatt, Dr. Indira Rajaraman, Shri Y.C. Deveshwar and Prof. Damodar Acharya, Directors, attended the meeting. Dr. K.C. Chakrabarty, Shri Anand Sinha, Shri Harun R. Khan and Dr. Urjit R. Patel, Deputy Governors, were also present. The meeting was also attended by Shri Arvind Mayaram, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs and Shri Rajiv Takru, Secretary, Department of Financial Services, the Government nominee Directors on the Central Board. Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Chief Economic Adviser and Governor designate, also attended the meeting as a Special Invitee.

The Board reviewed the current economic situation, global and domestic challenges and policy responses, as also the Draft Annual Report (2012-13) on the working of the Reserve Bank of India.

The Central Board meetings are presently held seven times in a year. Apart from holding meetings in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and one in New Delhi after the Union Budget, which is addressed by the Finance Minister, the rest of the meetings are held in other states by rotation. The main function of the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank is to provide overall direction to its affairs.

Lower Barriers to make Banking Accessible: RBI Governor tells Bankers

Earlier, on August 7, 2013, a special State Level Bankers' Committee meeting was convened. Senior officials of the State Government led by the Chief Secretary, Government of Maharashtra, Chairmen and Managing Directors of leading public and private sector banks in Maharashtra and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, as also, senior officials of the Reserve Bank attended the meeting. Several issues, such as, meaningful financial inclusion, seeding of bank accounts with Aadhaar numbers to facilitate direct benefit transfer (DBT), training of banking correspondents, especially in districts identified for DBT, were discussed. While concluding the discussion on financial inclusion, Governor Dr. D. Subbarao observed that people generally found banking to be beyond their reach. Banks should, therefore, consciously endeavour to lower the barriers to make banking accessible to them.

The State Government officials were sensitised about entities conducting unauthorised financial business with people falling prey to their promises of high returns and then the entities vanishing with hard earned monies. There were entities which were not registering with the Reserve Bank and other financial regulators. It was mentioned that surveillance of such unlawful activities by the State Government with its wide reach, was necessary over these entities to protect investors' interest.

Alpana Killawala

Principal Chief General Manager

Financial inclusion: Banks urged to lower access barriers and enable Aadhaar-linked accounts for secure direct benefit transfers. The Governor directed banks to reduce barriers to access to advance financial inclusion, including seeding bank accounts with Aadhaar to facilitate direct benefit transfer and improving training for banking correspondents; State officials were urged to monitor and act against unauthorised financial activities to protect investors.