"Our Payments System has best technology"

says G Padmanabhan, CGM RBI

By M B RATNANNAVAR always plan ahead. In RBI we are al- On new delivery channels like the for NEFT and NFS is also being cre-
ready looking at the next generation mobile phones, Padmanabhan said, ated at the data centre which will pro-
RTGS with more improved features" "The subscriber base is increasing vide the requisite redundancies to as-
bone of an advanced monetary said G Padmanabhan. sharply and serves over 400 million sure their uninterrupted availability at
PAYMENTS
economy. It SYSTEM
is also one isofthe
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key Turning out attention to the retail subscribers as on date, while the mo- all times. We are also in the process
areas in which technology has been a systems, Padmanabhan said, "The Na- bile tariffs have seen a steep decline. of looking at a number of other options
driving force for innovations. In the 2nd tional Payments Cor- This has resulted in the like, hosting the data of all MICR-
Annual Payments Summit 2009, orga- poration of India increase in use of mo- CPCs at a central location which can
nized recently by the Indian Banks' As- (NPCI) is looked upon bile phones with the av- facilitate a single point of download for
sociation and Finsight Events in Mumbai, to consolidate and erage being 287 min- the member binks be it the clearing
the issues and challenges relating to each launch new products to utes a month. There is data or reports, single window facility
payments mechanism were deliberated in modernise the various also a constant demand for member banks to view the balances
which regulators, legal and technology retail payment prod- for more value added held across various clearing locations
experts, senior banking professionals and ucts. NEFT, a widely services for entertain- by leveraging the core banking solu-
academicians were present. Reserve used retail payment ment, information, tion of the bank managing the CPC,
Bank of India's Chief General Manager product has tran- banking, et al. The mo- conceptualising and implementing
in charge of Department of Payment & scended borders with bile phones and prepaid settlement finality with an appropriate
Settlement Systems, in his key note ad- the launch of the Indo- cards are expected to be mechanism to take care of failure-to-
dress dwelled on various issues of Pay- Nepal Remittance Fa- the frontiers of devel- settle situations etc" said
ment systems and also the initiatives cility Scheme for pro- opments in technology Padmanabhan.
taken by RBI in this regard. viding a cheaper mode in general, and payment Concluding his address,
"When we talk of large value pay- of sending migrant worker remittances systems in particular, in the years to Padmanabhan said, "As part of the
ment systems, RTGS comes to our from India to Nepal. Payment systems come". regulatory set up that has been the driv-
mind first. It is a matter of great sat- in India have had a chequered history With RBI's Cheque truncation suc- ing force of innovations in payment
isfaction to mention here that we had and traditional systems have been in cess in the National Capital Region systems, I can justifiably claim that our
recently subjected our RTGS system to vogue for many centuries, well min- Delhi, he said that to migrate cheque efforts are on track and in sync with
an external institution for expert analy- gling with the more recent electronic clearing to an electronic platform by what the situation requires. I am
sis, especially to review compliance products. The initiatives of the Re- moving to image based cheque process- equally sure that in the years to come,
with the internationally accepted Core serve Bank- all through a consultative ing at present the cheque truncation if America can be enthused by slogan
Principles as applicable to Systemically process - have always aimed at the es- system (CTS) handles more than 90% 'Yes, we can' , we can very well set our-
Important Payment Systems. The re- tablishment of an integrated system that of the daily cheque volumes at New selves the slogan 'Yes, we have' for our
sults are very satisfying. Our RTGS would benefit all the sectors of the Delhi. It is necessary to extend the payment systems. We should be able
system has been found to be in full economy, and at the same time reduce benefits of cheque truncation across to proudly proclaim, 'Yes", our pay-
compliance with all the core principles, the overall risk in the system. At the more centres. It is our intention to ex- ment systems have embraced the best
except in one area where we are ad- heart of all these initiatives is the role tend CTS to Chennai which would then of technology, have practices that com-
judged to be partly compliant and that played by technology which has been also act as a DR site for the solution at pare with the best in the world, have
too because we are offering the RTGS the backbone of the payment system re- 'New Delhi and vice versa. resilience to upscale and be inter-op-
facility free of cost to member banks! forms and it is gratifying to note that "We have also set up a state of the erable, have enabled financial inclu-
But we are fully conscious that this there has been substantial expansion of art data centre where to the critical pay- sion, have done all that was expected of
does not mean that we can rest on our the menu of technology based products ment system applications like RTGS, it. Can we? We can! Will we? We will!
laurels. Given the fast changing land- ~nd services available to the custom- CFMS and PDO-NDS have already We are all equal partners in this endeav-
scape of the payment system we can ers of banks for their payment needs". been migrated. Back-up infrastructure our".