India’s foreign exchange reserves at a reasonable level: S S Mundra

Though there is no defined forex reserves level where we can say we don’t need more, India’s foreign exchange reserves are at a ‘reasonable level’, assured Reserve Bank Deputy Goevrnor S S Mundra.

In the week to July 3, the reserves declined by $704 million to $354.517 billion. It touched a lifetime high of $355.46 billion in the fortnight ended June 19.

During last fiscal, the RBI added $ 1.4 billion to the reserves against $15.5 billion in the previous fiscal. In the first two months of this financial year, it has already mopped up $8 billion to the buffer.

Mundra said accumulation of reserves involves cost aspects and further build-up of reserves will depend on events in the global arena.

When asked whether the inflation trajectory as indicated by the recently released data was on the expected line, Mundra said, "Our inflation trajectory was outlined in the last monetary policy announcement. Wait for the next monetary policy to see how it has progressed".

Retail inflation surged to eight-month high of 5.4 per cent in June, from 5.01 per cent in May.

Mundra said the RBI is working towards issuing licenses to small finance and payments banks. He said banks should not take customer service only for meeting the compliance or filing annual certificates.

"We have already issued a circular that each bank should appoint a chief customer service officer, popularly known as banking ombudsman. And, soon we will be issuing the operational guidelines that how these people are going to be appointed," he said.

Mundra further said the office of banking ombudsman, which is an RBI outfit, received around 85,000 complaints last year.

"The single largest segment of complaint was non-compliance with Banking Codes and Standards Board of India (BCSBI), at 29 per cent," he said.

BCSBI is an independent and autonomous institution to monitor and ensure that its standards adopted by the banks are adhered to while delivering their services.

The second largest number of complaints came from ATMs, debit and credit cards-related issues which was around 21 per cent.