NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das on Thursday said that there is no reason for the central bank to revise gross domestic product (GDP) projection downwards.
Addressing the inaugural edition of Economic Times Financial Inclusion Summit via video conferencing, Das stated that India's financial system will have a crucial role in fulfilling aspirations and needs of our economy on the mend.
To mitigate the financial impact of Covid-19, the Reserve Bank took several measures like lowering interest rate, on-tap liquidity window and more, he noted.
Praising India's digital ecosystem, the RBI governor noted that services like IMPS and UPI saw transactions worth Rs 4.5 lakh crore per day in the month of June itself.
Technological advances made it easier and the government also gave it a greater thrust with the launch of the PM Jan Dhan Yojana scheme.
Das emphasised that financial inclusion will continue to be a “policy priority” for the central to make the post-pandemic recovery more equitable and sustainable.
"Financial inclusion is a key driver of sustained and balanced economic growth which helps reduce income inequality and poverty, he added.
The Reserve Bank will very soon be coming out with the first financial inclusion index, which will assess progress in terms of access, usage and quality.
"It is the responsibility of all stakeholders to ensure that the financial ecosystem (including the digital medium) is inclusive and capable of effectively addressing risks like mis-selling, cybersecurity, data privacy and promoting trust in the financial system through appropriate financial education and awareness," the RBI chief added.
To measure the extent of financial inclusion in the country, it has been decided to construct and periodically publish a financial inclusion index (FII), he said, adding an announcement was made some time back about such an index.
The index will have parameters across the three dimensions, including access, usage and quality, he said, adding “work on FII is underway and the index will be published very shortly by the Reserve Bank”.
(With inputs from PTI)
