in their early days of operation, i understand that these have been doing good work. i would like to urge the bankers present here to make more vigorous efforts to make the concept of credit counselling in the indian context a great success. at what price customer centricity? coming to the precise theme of this session, viz., the price or cost of customer centricity, i would like to briefly touch upon a few special aspects of operations of a banking institution. there could be a view that the too much of customer orientation or customer centricity in provision of banking services could impose a heavy cost on the banks, which are after all commercial organisations engaged in the pursuit of profit. it can also be argued that the customer - centric regulatory guidelines stipulated by the rbi or other regulators do entail the burden of compliance cost for the banks, albeit it might be in the ultimate interest of the customer. in this context, i would like to remind the audience here that banks are “ special ” all over the world and would continue to be so for a variety of systemic reasons. also, banking is one of the most closely regulated industries in most of the countries. it needs being borne in mind that the banking licence granted by a banking regulator, such as the rbi, is the regulatory authorisation given to a bank for accepting uncollateralised deposits, at a relatively low cost, for virtually unlimited amounts, from the members of public, who may not be financially very savvy. moreover, the banks are also allowed to deploy a very high degree of leverage through mobilisation of deposits, on a relatively small capital base, but subject to meeting certain prudential requirements, such as capital adequacy ratio. the banks are able to do this primarily on account of the confidence of the customers in the bank concerned and in the banking system, as a whole. since offering good quality customer service is one of the ways of winning the customers ’ confidence in the operations and efficiency of the bank, it is only logical that the banks should strive to provide the best possible standards of customer service to their clientele, so as to ensure their continued patronage. in this backdrop, it is only reasonable to expect that the bank customers, who entrust their hard - earned money to the banks in good faith and are the primary source of low - cost funding as well those who provide revenue to a bank, deserve to be treated fairly and efficiently in provision of various banking services. this

and i would encourage alan blinder and his collaborators to extend their work on the production and role of forecasts in the decision - making of different central banks ; and how the communication of forecasts interacts with the communication of other elements of the policy process. see tucker, p m w, ‘ money and credit : banking and the macroeconomy ’, speech at the monetary policy and the markets conference, 13 december 2007, bank of england quarterly bulletin q1 2008, pp 96 - 106. other bits of central banking finally, and briefly, i would observe that blinder ’ s work on decision - taking processes and structures has so far focused entirely on the setting of interest rates. we have been living through a decade or more in which, at many although not all central banks, other decisions affected the financial landscape and risks to stability. again drawing on his experience as the vice chairman of the fed board and again comparing and contrasting different approaches, i think we would all benefit enormously if alan blinder took his scholarly apparatus and spirit of enquiry into other corners of central banking and how they fit together.