apart from advertising in those social sites, about participating in such conversations to extract the best and improvise? although bankers in the west are increasingly starting to participate in the social media, they still mull over the security and other concerns such as accountability in participating in social media. but as it always happens in technology or any other dynamics, the bankers tend to tread with caution and this area is no exception. balancing business gain with added risk the most universal risk worry for banks large and small is the credit risk. regulators will want to see banks with least credit risk, yet keep credit standards high. credit risk will continue to be a big focus as long as depositors ’ interest is paramount. as a result, banks will need to obtain more and better data to make credit decisions and to create analytics based on that data. but the essence of analytics lies in the fact that the qualitative data is not fragmented for consolidation. the dashboard should effectively give drill down view of the underlying credit risk of the top layer of the credit portfolio. why not modernise the core? i am happy that no bank today advertises that “ we are 100 % computerised or 100 % branches under core banking solution ”. that marketing trend is behind us. but after a decade of cbs wave, the moot point is how many banks have upgraded to the next best level? have we migrated to the latest os, application technology, security devices et al? how many banks have migrated to the latest cbs platforms? perhaps, those who migrated had faced issues and therefore, other may be diffident. but upgrade is the only way to sustain the competitive edge and remain close to reality. core banking renewal also comes with the prospect of delivering on the promise of conducting business in real time. so being modern to the core has to be the focus for banks for the days to come. bis central bankers ’ speeches why not collaborate? the modern collaboration has rendered the ability to work together in real time. with the rise of new collaboration technologies – be they based on the web or in the cloud, and whether they are powered by videoconferencing, voice, wikis, software or hosted solutions – collaboration tools have reached a point where cost and familiarity are no longer a barrier to adoption but the content they deliver are making great impact. imagine the sms alert of a stolen card swipe and the resultant card block! in this context, i also wish to flag the issue of banks investing huge amounts in data

information and analytical requirements have become more diversified with added emphasis on financial stability. with structured monetary policy reviews becoming based on labour bureau data. bis central bankers ’ speeches more frequent, the need for high quality and frequent forward looking information has increased. at the same time, application of statistics in solving operational issues has gained increasing importance. these developments have contributed to the demand for trained statisticians across the departments of the bank. the department, being the second largest pool of statisticians after isi in the country, must rise to the occasion to serve the organisation better. second, as central bank of the country, we have the responsibility of providing a sizable part of macro - financial statistics. our publications have a standard that provides confidence to data users. even for secondary data like price statistics, users prefer to consult rbi publications. therefore, the responsibility of maintaining data quality, timeliness and making data meaningful inevitably falls on dsim. the department should make greater use of technology to validate and improve data quality. third, there are some surveys on macroeconomic changes which have not progressed to our desired level of satisfaction. we have made a beginning on collection of data on trading sector and employment opportunities of fresh graduates. but we need to expedite and bring out these survey results soon. another important indicator which provides early signs of overall economic activity is retail sales. a quarterly survey on retail sales across cities may be initiated with the help of regional offices. fourth, the department is involved in various data gap and statistical measurement issues through its participation in various committees within and outside the rbi. one particular issue, that has received renewed attention across the globe in view of the complexity of inflation dynamics, is measurement of prices – commodity prices, consumer prices and asset prices. in recent years, there is greater institutional effort for improving measurement of prices in india. we have a new cpi ( rural, urban and combined ) now. the base of wpi was also revised. there is, however, considerable scope for improving the coverage and reporting of prices data besides research on measurement of prices and inflation, in terms of commodities / asset classes, stages of production as well as various sectors and regions. now that we have a more representative cpi series, institutional efforts need to be directed towards compilation of a producers price index ( ppi ) as well as a service price index. fifth, regional market intelligence or statistical intelligence plays a pivotal role in providing important inputs to monetary policy making. for example, the bank of england ( bo