##s down to an issue of managing of policy reforms in a non - disruptive fashion. finally, standards in the areas of corporate governance, insurance and to a certain extent insolvency and bankruptcy practices take a socio - cultural dimension and pose challenges of design, adoption and implementation. it is also possible to attempt a construct of the link between transparency and macroeconomic policy. good macroeconomic policy and good standards is perhaps an ideal situation for a country. good macroeconomic policy and poor transparency though not ideal is perhaps not risky by itself. bad macroeconomic policy and good transparency has large elements of risk and warrants change in policy before launching into transparency. the most risky combination perhaps is bad macroeconomic policy and bad standards. in a more dynamic sense, it can be argued that transparency provides incentives to adopt good macroeconomic policies. practical issues in implementation it is difficult to attempt an exhaustive or universally applicable account of practical issues in implementation of standards and codes since they are country - specific. it is, however, worth exploring, albeit hesitatingly, some general observations. first, while transparency and financial stability appear fundamentally complementary, there could be a trade off at some point. therefore, codes should be treated as milestones and the exact manner and timing of dissemination of information including the structure of reporting should depend not only on constitutional, legal and institutional mechanisms but also the likely impact of dissemination on the financial sector soundness and stability in a given context. secondly, many codes emphasise legislative provisions in a concrete manner. legislation provides the shield or back up for such actions. the emphasis of the codes should be to promote a general effort to improve legislative provisions and it is necessary to recognise that the process of legislation is time consuming and complex. while it is essential to recognize the importance of legislation, given its complexity, we need to appreciate that sound practices also could be as satisfactory. thirdly, the implementation of monetary policy is centralised with a single authority, generally the central bank, while the implementation of financial policies pertaining to various sectors like non - bank financial institutions, insurance, securities markets and payments and settlement may rest with different institutions. while the standards and codes could be taken as umbrella ones for all institutions, different aspects of implementation have to be dealt with separately for different sectors. this is necessary because the objectives of the institutions may differ fundamentally. for example, banking emphasises depositor protection whereas in the case of securities market, it is investor protection. the payment and settlement system has huge

intrabank vis - a - vis inter - bank since the latter is regulated by the central bank. such happenings defy all logic and needs to be debated in forums like the iba. the banks often counter this concern raised by the central bank by arguing that such charges should be best left to the market. as a person who has seen both sides, i am of the view that while the central bank need not intervene in the pricing of various payment products, it should not hesitate to step in if it finds a large section of the customers that cannot afford or are shying away from such products on account of arbitrary fixing of charges linked to the value of the transactions in a technology - driven scenario. rationalisation of service charges for paper and electronic bis central bankers ’ speeches products by the reserve bank was an attempt in this direction. acquiring space in the payment systems arena is a huge opportunity for bank and non - bank entities if adopted with a level playing attitude where the increasing number of customers coming into its fold is the game changer for pricing strategy. but above all, no attempt would be considered fruitful without the benefits percolating to the aam aadmi. 19. having stated the above, i must admit that one reason for costing of electronic products at a higher band in comparison with the traditional products has been the banks ’ attempt to part - recover the cost of deployment of technology. the process of introducing innovative products in india has been costly for the banks due to the unsystematic developments during the initial stage of technology deployment by the banking industry. in a country of our size, co - operative efforts and sharing of infrastructure while deploying technology is a lost opportunity story. customer service – dispute resolution and frauds dispute resolution 20. the customer dispute resolution has to be given a greater attention in the promotion of electronic payment products. appropriate processes have to be implemented for speedy resolution of such complaints. the time taken for resolution of such disputes should be reasonable. in an electronic payment scenario, a time period of 45 to 50 days for dispute resolution cannot be accepted as normal. our intervention in the resolution of disputes related to failed atm transactions was necessitated by this unreasonable time period. outlier issues cannot be the bottlenecks or benchmarks for dispute resolution process. by this logic, we feel that banks can bring down the 12 day period currently prescribed by rbi for failed atm transactions by implementing systems for automatic reversals. the outlier issues like part cash disbursal have to