RBI Releases First Report on Oversight of Payment Systems in India

This being the first report, the assessment of the various payment systems is broad based. The introductory chapter briefly gives the role of central banks in oversight and also highlights the importance of retail payment systems and the developmental role played by the central banks in improving and bringing in safety and efficiency in the retail payment systems. Detailed assessment of the Systemically Important Payment Systems has been made against the international standards published by the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS), Bank for International Settlements (BIS) subsequently.

The detailed assessment of the Large Value Payment Systems, viz., paper based High Value Clearing, Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) System, Forex Clearing and Settlement has been made against the international standards – Core Principles for Systemically Important Payment Systems. The Government Securities Clearing has been assessed vis-à-vis the Recommendations for Securities Settlement Systems. The clearing operations for the Government Securities and Forex are performed by the Clearing Corporation of India Limited (CCIL) which also acts as the central counterparty (CCP) for these segments. The assessment of the CCP has been made against the Recommendations for Central Counterparties.

The Report also briefly highlights the steps already initiated by the Reserve Bank of India for ensuring smooth operations of the payment systems in vogue. The measures for sound oversight framework have also been enunciated in the Report.