IMF, World Bank laud RBI for 'strengthening' supervision

The IMF and the World Bank have commended the Reserve Bank of India for its "remarkable progress in strengthening banking supervision" saying the regulation by the central bank has improved in recent years.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank had released two separate main Reports of the 2017 India Financial Sector Assessment Programme (FSAP) in December 2017.

In continuation, the IMF and the World Bank yesterday released two detailed assessment reports (DARs) relating to the 2017 India FSAP.

The report providing 'Detailed Assessment of Observance Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision' has been released by the IMF and the World Bank.

The report providing 'Detailed Assessment of Observance of Clearing Corporation of India Limited (CCIL) Central Counter Party (CCP) and Trade Repository (TR)' was released by the World Bank.

Market regulator Sebi in a statement noted that the DAR on the observance of Basel Core Principles commends the Reserve Bank for the remarkable progress in strengthening banking supervision since the last FSAP.

"It notes that the supervision and regulation by the Reserve Bank remain strong and have improved in recent years," the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said.

The DAR states that the system-wide asset quality review (AQR) and the strengthening of prudential regulations in 2015 testify to the authorities' commitment to transparency and a more accurate recognition of banking risks.

The report also notes that most of the Basel III framework (and related guidance) has been implemented and cooperation arrangements, both domestically and cross-border, are now firmly in place.

The DAR, Sebi said, acknowledges that banking reforms, including the Indradhanush Plan for revitalising the public sector banks and the Bank Board Bureaus have helped usher in an era of transparency and improved discipline and will go a long way in resolving the problem of bad loans in India.

The DAR relating to the assessment of the CCIL on CCP system and TR systems' benchmarking against the applicable principles of financial market infrastructure concluded that the CCIL systems have a high degree of observance of the principles.