Liberalised RBI rules making banking easy in India

The increasing flexibility in the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) rules and regulations have contributed to considerably higher levels of growth of India’s financial sector in recent years, despite the global economic slowdown, said a senior banking professional from India yesterday.  The RBI is referred to as India’s banker’s bank, controlling, monitoring and supervising the whole banking operations in the country.   Speaking to Gulf Times yesterday, executive director of South Indian Bank (SIB) Limited Abraham Thariyan said, now-a-days banks in India could start branches in any place, having a population of less than 50,000. “Absolutely, no licence from the RBI is required these days to start branches in places having less than 50,000 residents,” he said.   The RBI’s increasing flexibility has stemmed from the confidence demonstrated by the Indian economy to perform well even when the world has not completely recovered from the financial slowdown, said the senior banking professional. Indian economy has been growing at an impressive rate of between 8 and 8.5% even in the last two years, recalled Thariyan.  As a result of such liberalised rules, banks could reach their potential customers more easier and faster than what they used to be, added Thariyan.  Along with another prominent private sector bank, SIB accounts for more than 33 % of the NRI remittances coming to the southern Indian state of Kerala, said Thariyan.