base availing of mobile banking facilities as on september 30, 2010 stands at 8. 87 lakh as compared to 6. 16 lakh as at the end of august 2010. during september, 2010, 4. 9 lakh transactions of value rs. 44 crores were carried out using this mode of payment both for transfer of funds and purchase of goods and services. concluding thoughts 18. while the growth of mobile payments has been rapid, it is far from becoming an important source of financial inclusion. this in my view calls for two important facilitations. one, partnership rather than competition among the stake holders, importantly mobile companies and banks and two, a ubiquitous switch for enabling interbank p to p and p to b payments. while we are working towards achieving the first facility, npci has taken the important step of enabling the second important facility. 19. the interbank mobile payment services ( imps ) provides an inter - operable infrastructure to the banks for enabling interbank real time funds transfer transactions. what may be one of its strongest points, imps rides on the existing nfs interbank atm transaction switching infrastructure and message format – and hence easy for banks to adopt. it has the potential for the wide reach across the country when all nfs member banks adopt this service and promote this service aggressively. 20. alongside this, with the recent relaxations in the bc guidelines, i believe that all the building blocks are in place. now it is entirely up to the various stake holders to take the product forward. more importantly, what has been facilitated by npci today can be construed as yet another step towards achieving its stated vision of becoming a true umbrella organisation for retail payments in this country. i hope npci will continue to show equal enthusiasm in commissioning and completing other important projects like the cheque truncation and the much awaited india card. 21. i too join mr balachandran in congratulating the iba, entire npci team and all others who have contributed to the roll out of this product. i wish the npci success in all their endeavors.

prize in 2004, it has galvanised a worldwide search for proximate 3 / 9 bis - central bankers'speeches solutions such as appointing a conservative central banker who is more averse to inflation than the government ( kenneth rogoff in 1985 ) ; writing a state - contingent wage contract with the head of the central bank, specifying the inflation rate to be achieved ( carl walsh in 1995 ) ; independence of the central bank ; and since the early 1990s, inflation targeting. you can gauge the lengths to which central banks have to go to be time consistent in the presence of lags in the operation of monetary policy. much of these lags emanates from frictions in financial markets, especially at the synapses. i will focus on the market segments over which the reserve bank exercises regulatory jurisdiction, namely, the money, government securities, forex and derivatives markets. within this focal length, my interest is confined to impediments to monetary policy transmission that are encountered due to market microstructure as well as the manner in which each segment integrates into the continuum. my purpose is just to highlight a few instances of transmission and distribution losses that make my job adrenaline - driven and pressure - cooked, not to pontificate on any policy agenda. money market let me begin with the money market, the happy hunting ground of central banks the world over. technically, the responsibility of transmission as far as central banks are concerned is to ensure that the monetary policy impulse is fully and seamlessly reflected in the money market. hence, money market rates, preferably the uncollateralised rate which provides a sense of the infra - marginal demand for liquidity, are typically chosen as the operating target of monetary policy. by being the ultimate supplier of reserves, central banks have a dominant influence on the money market. in india, the experience has been that the transmission of monetary policy to overnight money market rates is instantaneous and full. collateralised markets may quote slightly finer and draw more volumes than uncollateralised segments, but together they are fully aligned with the policy stance. of course, an issue stemming from the thinning of uncollateralised volumes relates to the integrity, stability and signalling function of the overnight mumbai inter bank offer rate ( mibor ), the benchmark in the largest and most liquid interest derivative market in india and importantly, a transactions - based rate. the bulk of money market activity is concentrated in the overnight segment, which