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Establishment of Reserve Bank of India
Establishment of Reserve Bank of India
The RBI controls the monetary and other banking policies of the Indian government. The
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was established on April 1, 1935, in accordance with the Reserve
Bank of India Act, 1934. The Reserve Bank is permanently situated in Mumbai since 1937.
Establishment of Reserve Bank of India
The Reserve Bank is fully owned and operated by the Government of India.
The Preamble of the Reserve Bank of India describes the basic functions of the Reserve Bank as:
The Reserve Bank’s operations are governed by a central board of directors, RBI is on the whole
operated with a 21-member central board of directors appointed by the Government of India in
accordance with the Reserve Bank of India Act.
The Central board of directors comprise of:
Organisation Structure
Objectives
The primary objectives of RBI are to supervise and undertake initiatives for the financial sector
consisting of commercial banks, financial institutions and non-banking financial companies
(NBFCs).
Some key initiatives are:
Legal Framework
The Reserve Bank of India comes under the purview of the following Acts:
Set parameters for banks and financial operations within which banking and
financial systems function.
Protect investors interest and provide economic and cost-effective banking to the
public.
Currency Issuer
Developmental role
Promotes and performs promotional functions to support national banking and
financial objectives.
Related Functions
Provides banking solutions to the central and the state governments and also acts as
their banker.
Chief Banker to all banks: maintains banking accounts of all scheduled banks.
The Reserve Bank has taken many steps towards initiating and updating secure and
sustainable methods of payment systems in India to meet public requirements.
Currently, payment methods in India consist of paper-based instruments, electronic
instruments and other instruments, such as pre-paid system (e-wallets), mobile
internet banking, ATM-based transactions, Point-of-sale terminals and online
transactions.
Paper-based Payments
Use of paper-based instruments such as cheques and demand drafts accounts for
nearly 60% of the volume of total non-cash transactions in India. These forms of
payments have been steadily decreasing over a period of time due to the electronic
modes of payments gaining popularity due to the comparative convenience, safety
and overall efficiency.
Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) technology was introduced by RBI
in the paper-based payment method for speeding up and bringing in efficiency in
the processing of cheques.
A separate clearing system for paper-based payment method was introduced for
clearing cheques of high-value ranging from rupees one lakh and above. Also, the
introduction of cheque truncation (CTS) system restricts the physical movement of
cheques and utilises images for enhanced secure payment processing.
Electronic Payments
The initiatives taken by the Reserve Bank in the domain of electronic payment systems are
immense and vast. The types of electronic forms of payment by the RBI are as follows: