Covid-19 exposed and widened economic, social fault lines: RBI Guv

Das said the year 2020 could be marked as one of the toughest periods for human society due to Covid-19

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Saturday said the financial stability is a public good, and its resilience and robustness need to be preserved and nurtured by all stakeholders.

Delivering the 39th Nani Palkhivala memorial lecture through a virtual platform, he said the central bank has directed its policy efforts to put in place a state-of-the-art national payments infrastructure, ensuring a safe, secure, efficient and cost-effective robust payments ecosystem.

The Reserve Bank of India is positioning itself to provide an enabling environment where regulated entities are catalysed to exploit these new avenues while maintaining and preserving financial stability, he said.

The regulated entities on their part need to strengthen their internal defences to identify emerging risks early and manage them effectively, Das added.

"Financial stability is a public good and its resilience and robustness need to be preserved and nurtured by all stakeholders. We need to support economic revival and growth, we need to preserve financial stability," he said.

Das said the year 2020 could be marked as one of the toughest periods for human society caused by Covid-19 and the policies adopted by the central bank have helped in easing the severity of the economic impact of the pandemic.

"The unprecedented health and economic catastrophe caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed and widened economic and social fault lines across countries", Das said. "It is essential to evolve a prudent and judicious approach towards managing the financial system not only during the pandemic but also in its aftermath", he noted.

With the principal objective during the pandemic to support economic activity, Das said, "I would like to unambiguously reiterate that the Reserve Bank remains steadfast to take any further measures, as may be necessary, while at the same time remaining fully committed to maintaining financial stability," he added.