The Reserve Bank of India is mulling currency futures trading in the country for which it is working on the regulatory guidelines.

“We have received several suggestions on currency futures from market participants. These will be studied and executed at an appropriate time,” RBI Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath said at a conference on derivatives here on Wednesday.

The apex bank had set up a working group early this year to study the issue and had recieved suggestions from several quarters, she said. However, she made it clear that there is “no time frame” for implementing the proposal.

The currency futures trading will enable individuals and institutions to hedge and trade their Indian rupee risk on a transparent and equal basis.

In its 2007-08 Annual monetary policy, the banking regulator had recommended the constitution of the working group for “an extensive consultation with the market participants to operationalise the proposal in line with the current legal and regulatory frame work.”

Concerned over the increased volume of Non-Deliverable Forward Market (NDF) instruments in the market, the apex bank is understood to be thinking of allowing more trading instruments for market participants.
NDF is an instrument based on the rupee-dollar exchange, which is traded in international financial centers, where the RBI does not having much control over the instrument.

In order to improve the risk management mechanism of the participants, the apex bank had recently permitted banks and primary dealers to do transactions in single-entity Credit Default Swaps (CDS).


RBI TO BANKS

Register all  call centres with DoT
Mumbai, dhns: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on Wednesday, asked banks and their call centres to register as telemarketers along with their direct selling agents (DSAs) and direct marketing agents (DMAs) with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

It also asked banks to expedite the process of registration with DoT, after the latter voiced that the response by banks in this context was ‘tardy’ in registering telemarketers. The apex bank had earlier made it mandatory for banks to use the services of only telemarketers registered with the DoT.

The central bank, in consultation with the DoT, has also decided to include banks and their own call centres under the purview of telemarketers after a review of guidelines.