##s. third, the u. s. has an independent central bank – the federal reserve – which has been successful in keeping inflation low and stable. as a result, the dollar has been a reliable store of value in recent years. another point in the united states ’ favor is the considerable steps taken to shore up areas of weakness revealed by the financial crisis. in particular, the safety and soundness of our financial system has been enhanced. capital and liquidity requirements for u. s. banks have been raised significantly. stress tests have been imposed to enhance the viability of large systemic institutions even in very adverse economic and financial environments. reforms have been enacted to facilitate the recovery and resolution of troubled institutions. this bis central bankers ’ speeches includes living will requirements for the major systemically - important financial institutions, and the development of an improved resolution regime to ensure that institutions that do get into difficulty can be resolved without disrupting the stability of the financial system. in conclusion, i welcome other countries ’ progress toward achieving the preconditions necessary for their currencies to attain the stature of a reserve currency. however, we should not act as if this is sufficient to achieve a well - functioning global financial system. in particular, the current regime is inefficient in a number of important ways. countries have found it necessary to self - insure against the risk of large capital flow reversals. this has led to a very sharp rise in aggregate foreign exchange reserve holdings. this form of selfinsurance is very expensive – especially when the return on the foreign exchange reserve portfolio is less than the cost of the domestic liabilities that fund these holdings. as i have said in the past, i encourage more work to examine whether there are other more efficient regimes that, for example, would economize on required foreign exchange reserve buffers. in this regard, i think expanding the capacity of the imf ’ s resources and working to further destigmatize drawing on the imf ’ s liquidity facilities could be worthwhile steps in this direction. thank you for your kind attention. bis central bankers ’ speeches

deepali pant joshi : strategy adopted for financial inclusion speech by dr deepali pant joshi, executive director of the reserve bank of india, at a workshop, organised by the government of madhya pradesh, new delhi, 24 january 2014. * * * one of the major challenges for next decade or more to banks in the country is to capture the banking business of over 50 % population of this country of over 1. 2 billion people. poor people need to be provided with access to financial products at low transaction cost. they need to be provided assistance on the demand side ( in terms of financial awareness and literacy ) as well as on the supply side ( in the form of availability of customized financial products ). taking into account their seasonal inflow of income from agricultural operations, migration from one place to another seasonal and irregular work availability and income, the existing financial system needs to be designed to suit their requirements and to be more responsive to their needs. no doubt banks and regulators play a major role in this, but we also need to think beyond traditional ways and delivery channels to speed up the efforts. dr. raghuram rajan, hon ’ ble governor, rbi has powerfully enunciated the need for broad based diversified growth leading to rapid reduction in poverty. governor has also laid down rbi ’ s developmental measures for the near future on five pillars and one of the most important pillar amongst them is financial inclusion where the objective is to expand access of finance to small and medium enterprises, the unorganized sector, the poor, and remote and underserved areas of the country. the approach adopted for achieving the objectives under financial inclusion rbi ’ s perspective on financial inclusion aims at giving a specific direction to the collaborated efforts to gain synergic benefits. therefore, we have defined financial inclusion as “ the process of ensuring access to appropriate financial products and services needed by all sections of the society in general and vulnerable groups such as weaker sections and low income groups in particular at an affordable cost in a fair and transparent manner by mainstream institutional players. ” reserve bank of india has made sustained efforts to increase the penetration of formal financial services in unbanked areas, while continuing with its policy of ensuring adequate but viable flow of credit to priority sectors of the economy. we have adopted a structured, planned and integrated approach towards fi which is focusing on improving access to financial services and also encouraging demand for financial services through financial literacy initiatives. some of the defining features of our approach to fi are : institutional