RBI governor seeks legal support for financial sector reforms
02 Nov 2009
Reserve Bank governor D Subbarao has asked the legal community's help in the reform process required to make the financial sector healthy, resilient and growth promoting.
Stating that the global financial crisis had thrown up a number of issues relating to the regulation of the financial sector, Subbarao pointed out that a lot of analysis and thinking was going into the ways of preventing mistakes and excesses that led to the crisis.
Addressing the legal fraternity in banking and financial sector who had gathered in Kochi on 30 October to attend a symposium on `Changing dynamics of legal risks in the financial system', Subbarao said "the legal aspects of the proposed reforms were an important dimension of the whole exercise and it was necessary to determine the reforms required on the legal side to make the financial sector healthy, resilient and growth promoting."
The symposium is part of the Reserve Bank's Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The RBI commenced its operations in 1935 and is in its 75th year (2009-2010). The celebrations include symposia and seminars on issues concerning central banking, outreach programmes to reach out to external audience and cultural and sports events for internal staff of the RBI.
RBI deputy governor Shyamala Gopinath inaugurated the symposium. In her inaugural speech, she dealt with in detail, the causes for the recent global financial crisis and called upon the legal community to deliberate on the various aspects of the crisis and try to arrive at some practical solutions to avoid or mitigate legal risks for the financial sector.
Deigo Davaos, general counsel of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in his keynote address detailed the legal risk, its management and shared his thoughts on mitigating them. He emphasised the need for proper documentation and legislative changes with respect to cross-border insolvency issues.
