Shaktikanta Das: 17th C D Deshmukh Memorial Lecture
Opening remarks by Mr Shaktikanta Das, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, at the 17th C D
Deshmukh Memorial Lecture, Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai, 25 April 2019.
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On behalf of the Reserve Bank of India, I am delighted to welcome Mr. Agustin Carstens, General
Manager of the Bank for International Settlements to deliver the C. D. Deshmukh Memorial
lecture, the seventeenth in the series. We are also honored to have Smt. and Shri Atul
Deshmukh from late Shri C. D. Deshmukh's family. A hearty welcome to all the distinguished
invitees of the Reserve Bank.
2. At the outset, I would like to say a few words about Shri C. D. Deshmukh to commemorate the
occasion. Shri Chintaman Dwarkanath Deshmukh was born in Nata, near Fort Raigad in
Maharashtra on January 14, 1896. He had an outstanding educational career. He stood first in the
Matriculation examination of the University of Bombay in 1912. He graduated from Jesus College
of Cambridge University in 1917 and topped the Indian Civil Services examination, then held only
in London, in 1918. Upon his return to India in 1920, he worked in the Government of Bihar and
also as a joint secretary to the Government of India.
3. His association with the RBI began in July 1939, when he was appointed Liaison Officer to
keep the Government of India in touch with the Bank's affairs. Three months later, he was
appointed Secretary of the Central Board of the Bank and two years later in December 1941, as
the Deputy Governor. He was the first Indian to be appointed as the Governor of the Reserve
Bank of India on August 11, 1943 and he continued in this capacity till June 30, 1949. He played a
pivotal role in the creation of Industrial Finance Corporation and promotion of rural credit. During
his tenure, RBI saw enactment of the Banking Companies Act, 1949 which laid the foundation for
regulation of banking sector in India. The nationalisation of RBI on January 1, 1949 also took
place during his tenure.
4. After his tenure in the RBI, Shri Deshmukh went on to become Member, Planning Commission
when it was set up in 1950. Subsequently, he became Union Finance Minister in 1950 and
served with distinction till July 1956. During his tenure, he made significant contributions to the
formulation and implementation of the country's First and Second Five Year Plans. He was
instrumental in the enactment of new Companies Act and nationalisation of the Imperial Bank of
India and life insurance companies. After resignation from Union Cabinet he worked as Chairman
of UGC during 1956 to 1961 and Vice-Chancellor of University of Delhi from 1962 to 1967. In
1975, he was bestowed with the Padma Vibhushan award. He was also a co-recipient of the
prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1959 for distinguished Government Service.
5. For this year's Memorial Lecture in honour of Shri C.D. Deshmukh, it is our pleasure to have
Mr. Agustin Carstens with us. He was the Governor of the Central Bank of Mexico from 2010 to
2017 and a member of the BIS Board from 2011 to 2017. As a BIS board member, he chaired
the Global Economy Meetings and the Meetings of Economic Consultative Council. He also
headed the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the IMF's policy advisory committee
for two years.
6. Mr. Carstens began his career at the Bank of Mexico in 1980, where he has worked in various
capacities. He later served as Mexico's deputy finance minister and as Deputy Managing Director
at the IMF. He was Mexico's Finance Minister from 2006 to 2009. He has also been a member of
the Financial Stability Board since 2010 and is a member of the Group of Thirty.
7. Mr. Carstens holds a doctoral degree in economics from University of Chicago and has
extensive research experience in the field of macroeconomic issues and finance. His work on
'Latin American Central Bank Reform: Progress and Challenges', which takes stock of the
institutional reforms of monetary policy in Latin America since the early 1990s, was widely
acknowledged.
8. Today, Mr. Carstens will speak on " Central Banking and Innovation: Partners in the Quest for
Financial Inclusion", - a topic which could easily be the most relevant at the current juncture. The
recent emergence of fintech or digital innovations in finance is potentially a strong transformative
force to shape the financial sector globally. A great benefit of these technological developments
is the scope to expand financial outreach in a cost effective manner. At the same time, however,
there are regulatory and supervisory challenges which the central banks across the globe need
to address.
9. The Reserve Bank is committed to promote and deepen the cause of financial inclusion in
India. The recent developments in FinTech have given a fresh impetus to financial inclusion
process in the country. Taking cognisance of exponential growth of digitisation and online
commerce in India, policy efforts have been directed in recent years to put in place a state of the
art national payments infrastructure and technology platform.The Reserve Bank is continuously
aligning its regulatory and supervisory framework so that the evolution of FinTech can be
leveraged to widen and ease the financial access by the excluded population. In view of the
growing significance of FinTech innovations and their interface with the financial sector as well
as financial sector entities, the Reseve Bank is strengthening its surveillance framework and has
also issued draft guidelines on "Enabling Framework for Regulatory Sandbox" for obtaining the
comments of stakeholders. Mr. Carstens's talk today will surely give us relevant insights in this
direction.
Let me now invite Mr. Carstens to deliver his lecture.