deepak mohanty : statistics and the reserve bank – recent developments and perspective opening remarks by mr deepak mohanty, executive director of the reserve bank of india, at the annual statistics conference 2013 of the reserve bank of india, mumbai, 22 march 2013. * * * 1. deputy governor, dr. urjit r. patel, shri a. b. chakraborty, officer - in - charge, department of statistics and information management ( dsim ) ; heads of select central office departments ; distinguished statisticians and economists from the academia ; and friends. i extend a warm welcome to you all to the annual statistics conference 2013, organized by dsim. this conference provides a platform to the officers of dsim to present their research work before the experts and receive their feedback in order to make the analysis more meaningful for policy and research. i thank the distinguished professors who have consented to discuss various papers prepared by my colleagues in dsim : prof. manoj panda ( director, institute of economic growth, delhi ), prof. n. r. bhanumurthy ( nipfp, new delhi ), prof. tathagata bandyopadhya ( iim, ahmedabad ), prof. rajendra vaidya ( igidr, mumbai ), prof. chetan ghate ( isi / icrier delhi ), prof. pulak ghosh ( iim, bangalore ), prof. t. v. ramanathan ( pune university ). you all bring together plenty of expertise and experience in the field of theory and practice of statistical research for economic policy making which is of great value to us. 2. i have said it earlier that statistics is a public good. as a central bank, we are responsible for generating various macro - financial statistics collected both from primary and secondary sources in the process of implementing our policies. we use statistics and statistical tools extensively to aid informed policy making. therefore, a solid statistical grounding and soiling the hands with data are basic prerequisites for the making of a good empirical economist. this is evident from the presence of many eminent economists amongst us in this conference. 3. let me recapitulate briefly about the outcome of the 2012 conference in the context of major developments that took place in the statistical activities during last one year. in the last year ’ s conference, dsim researchers presented 12 technical papers. subsequently these papers were revised based on the feedback received from the external experts.

high value clearing, intercity clearing etc are provided by nift. in rest of the business centres the process is manual but would eventually need to be automated. the local us dollar clearing system provides a low cost and efficient clearing system for us dollar denominated local instruments. the new system has reduced the clearing time of us dollar cheques from three weeks to only four days and has reduced the cost to the account holders. banks and their branches in eleven cities are fully utilizing this facility. real time gross settlement pakistan ’ s real time inter bank settlement mechanism ( prism ) is at an advanced stage of installation and is expected to be live by the 3rd quarter of 2006. it will automate the current inter - bank settlement systems for large value payments at sbp and will minimize risks like credit, liquidity and settlement risks inherent in the end of the day settlement system. its implementation will make the payments system much more efficient and resilient, offering transactional features which are hard to achieve under the current settlement systems. the rtgs system is based on the society for worldwide interbank financial telecommunication topology and includes the functionalities of queue management, grid lock resolution and interfacing with globus. prism will not only automate the inter bank funds transfer but will also facilitate the settlement of government securities transactions in primary and secondary markets. after the implementation of prism, settlement of securities between the participants will be on delivery vs. payment basis thus reducing the risk in securities trading by minimizing the settlement lag. sbp will also be able to settle the open market operation transaction through prism. prism will also bring more efficiency in intercity and intra - city clearing between the banks as nift will handle clearing on multilateral basis and these clearing results will be settled on a real time basis in prism. prism will also facilitate the commercial banks in making time critical third party funds transfers on behalf of its customers. payments system and electronic funds transfers act 2005 to facilitate nation - wide rtgs and electronic funds transfer, pakistan has now drafted the “ payments system and electronic funds transfers act 2005 ” that ensures conformance with industry demands and the bank for international settlements core principals for systemically important payment systems. the proposed act addresses issues like operation of payment systems, including the clearing and settlement obligations of the parties involved, supervisory role of sbp, documentation requirements by the participants, liabilities of parties in payment systems and legal proceedings in case of any conflict, finality and irrevocability of settled transactions etc