’ s population is yet to be covered under the formal system of banking and at the other end lies the task to fulfill the needs of the existing customer. customer relationship management - completing the picture a bank which closely integrates its technology strategy with its business strategy can certainly hope to reap the benefits of crm as it would help the bank to select and reach the target customers using the right channels, understand the value of the customers to the bank and optimize service quality, “ sense and respond ” to customers ’ needs through appropriate cross - selling and up - selling tactics besides re - selling opportunities. banks are realizing the need to understand their customers like never before. today ’ s customer expects – actually demands – to be treated as an individual consumer and business depositors will be more valuable to the banks than ever before ; failure to communicate with these customers at the right time, through the right channel, with the right offer will slowly wear away the client base. further availability of a single view of customer would also facilitate the banks. the earlier they realize and accept these issues, the faster they would be able to face competition from their counterparts. the need of the hour, therefore, is to be awake and alive to the needs of the masses and to ensure that benefits of technology percolate to even the weakest of them. as the saying goes “ the strength of the chain is determined by the weakest link ”. bis central bankers ’ speeches strength of the chain - financial inclusion i am sure this gathering of bankers needs no introduction to financial inclusion. today, the concept is an integral part of every banker ’ s responsibility with the focus being on “ inclusive growth ”. with increasing adoption of technology by banks, it is but natural that all stakeholders expect benefit from it. but is it fair that the fruits should be enjoyed only by those who have access to it or those who can afford it? this in fact has been focus of the government – central bank commitment to it - enabled financial inclusion. setting up of the financial inclusion technology fund as well as urging the banks to formulate a board approved financial inclusion plan for three years up to march 2013 are some of the initiatives in this direction. besides resources and strategic planning, the next obvious focus area is the delivery model and this is where technology provides value. we need to remember that we should work towards bringing nearly 400 million citizens to the formal fold of the banking sector. it is not just about opening “ no frill ” accounts. as

answer important policy questions. once collected, the data must be so collated, organised, summarised, and described as to be eminently useful for policy purposes. for example, summary measures such as means, frequencies, standard deviations, and correlations and creating tables and graphs that illustrate important findings, are of immediate use to us, though they need to be viewed with great caution, especially in terms of level of confidence that one can have in the sample estimate. finally, a word of caution. if conducted properly, surveys can accurately represent the opinions and judgments of a population of people but this doesn't mean that these opinions are right. further, a survey can establish whether or not a relationship exists between two variables but may not be sufficient to determine the direction of causality. let me take this opportunity to share with you the survey - work by rbi in india and our current intentions. among the surveys conducted by rbi in the past, the most important one was “ all - india rural credit survey ”. results of this survey had significant bearing on subsequent credit polices of rbi. the objective of the survey was to collect data that would assist rbi and the government of india in formulating an integrated credit policy for rural credit and to assess the extent of indebtedness of rural households to financial institutions in the organised and unorganised sectors. after nationalisation of major commercial banks in 1969, there was need to evolve a suitable credit policy to meet the developmental needs of select sectors of high priority. in this context, rbi conducted two separate surveys viz., “ survey of small scale industries ” and “ survey of traders and transport operators ”. in addition, the “ survey of non - profit institutions serving households ” ( npishs ), conducted by the rbi, provided information about the structure, employment, financial resources, financial performance, etc., of npishs. furthermore, an ad hoc survey on “ remittance of non - resident indians ” helped the rbi in formulating policies on non - resident deposits. at present, we, in the rbi, are conducting around 20 surveys on a regular basis, with varying periodicity ; we also conduct several need - based ad hoc surveys. in view of the size of the population of the country – in terms of individuals, corporates and financial institutions – we are sometimes consciously not considering the entire sector while conducting some of the surveys because of cost, time and efforts involved. in such cases, we are conducting some