pillars : financial stability assessment and stress testing ; legal, infrastructural and market development issues ; and an assessment of the status of implementation of international financial standards and codes. the first pillar is essentially concerned with stability assessment. taking into account the legal, regulatory and supervisory architecture in india, the cfsa felt the need for involving, and associating closely, all the major regulatory institutions in the financial sector – the rbi, sebi and irda, besides the relevant government departments. direct official involvement at different levels brought about enormous responsibility, ownership, and commitment to the process, ensuring constructive pragmatism when faced with contentious issues. since the assessment required comprehensive domain knowledge in the various technical areas examined, the cfsa initially constituted technical groups comprising officials with first - hand experience in handling the respective areas from the regulatory agencies concerned as well as the government to undertake the preliminary assessment and to prepare technical notes and background material in the concerned areas. this ensured that officials who are well - conversant with their own systems and are aware of the existing strengths and weaknesses could identify the best alternative solutions. to ensure an impartial assessment, the cfsa constituted four external independent advisory panels, comprising non - official experts drawn from within the country. these panels made their assessments after thorough debate and rigorous scrutiny of inputs provided by the technical groups. to further strengthen the credibility of this assessment, the advisory panels ’ assessments were peer reviewed by eminent international experts. the cfsa then drew up its own overview report at the final stage, drawing upon the assessments, findings and recommendations of the advisory panels and the comments of the peer reviewers. the assessments and recommendations comprise six volumes. all the six volumes are freely available on rbi ’ s website and i would strongly recommend that you read them. if six volumes are daunting, then read at least the first two volumes, viz., the executive summary and the overview report. overall, the cfsa found that our financial system is essentially sound and resilient, and that systemic stability is by and large robust. india is broadly compliant with most of the standards and codes though gaps were noted in the timely implementation of bankruptcy proceedings. of immediate interest, and related closely to the current macroeconomic conditions, the cfsa also carried out single - factor stress - tests for credit and market risks and liquidity ratio and scenario analyses. these tests show that there are no significant vulnerabilities in the banking system. this does not mean that npas

benjamin e diokno : new normal, new approach, new horizon speech by mr benjamin e diokno, governor of bangko sentral ng pilipinas ( bsp, the central bank of the philippines ), at the chinese filipino business club, inc. national convention, manila, 23 february 2022. * * * good day to all. i am pleased to join you in the national convention of the chinese filipino business club, inc. with the theme : “ new normal, new approach, new horizon ” indeed, the pandemic has changed the way we view and do things. extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. the unprecedented nature of the crisis called for an equally unprecedented response, and the entire government, including the bsp, acted promptly and decisively. we at the bangko sentral ng pilipinas moved fast to prevent the initial onslaught of the pandemic from damaging the economic and financial system. we started our policy cut as early as february 2020 — before the world health organization declared covid - 19 as a pandemic and before the country had its first local virus transmission. succeeding cuts, to date, resulted in a cumulative reduction of 200 basis points, or from four percent to a record low of two percent. we reduced the reserve requirement ratio to increase the volume of loanable funds in the system. as allowed by the new bsp charter, we extended emergency financing to the national government through a repurchase agreement. we also purchased government securities in the secondary market, and remitted dividends to the national government. to encourage lending to micro, small, and medium enterprises, we reduced reserve requirements and allowed msme loans to qualify as compliance with the required reserve ratio. in addition, we temporarily increased the single borrowers ’ limit and raised the ceiling for real estate loans of universal and commercial banks. to provide relief to affected borrowers, we excluded some loans from being tagged as past - due or non - performing and allowed a grace period for loan settlement and restructuring of rediscounted loans. the silver lining of the pandemic is that it has fast - tracked the digital transformation, particularly in the area of payments. the growth of digital payment innovations promotes further financial inclusion as digital payment innovations lower transaction costs and eliminate barriers to owning a transaction account. as you know, digital payments have become increasingly essential amid the pandemic. this is evident in the substantial increase in transactions in pesonet and instapay