Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired the 22nd Meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) via video conferencing, which was the first meet since the coronavirus outbreak. The meet was held to review the various measures to maintain financial stability in the context of COVID-19.
- The meeting also reviewed the current global and domestic macro-economic situation, financial stability and vulnerabilities issues, issues likely to be faced by banks and other financial institutions like Liquidity/Solvency of Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs)/housing finance companies (HFCs) / Micro finance Institutions (MFIs) and other related issues.Â
Key Points:
-The economy is expected to contract by 5% by some estimates amid the virus crisis.
-The meeting also took note of the activities undertaken by the FSDC Sub-Committee chaired by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das.
-This was the third meeting of the FSDC after the Narendra Modi government returned for the second term in May 2019.
-The Council noted that the COVID-19 Pandemic crisis poses a serious threat to the stability of the global financial system and the timing of recovery, is uncertain at this point of time.Â
Participants: The meeting was attended by Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs Anurag Thakur, Shaktikanta Das, Governor, Reserve Bank of India; Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Finance Secretary/Secretary, Department of Revenue; Tarun Bajaj, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs; Debasish Panda, Secretary, Department of Financial Services; Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology; Injeti Srinivas, Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs; Dr. Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser; Ajay Tyagi, Chairperson, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI); Subhash Chandra Khuntia, Chairperson, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI); Supratim Bandyopadhyay, Chairperson, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA); and Dr. M. S. Sahoo, Chairperson, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) and other senior officers of the Government of India and Financial Sector Regulators.
About FSDC
The FSDC is the apex body of sectoral regulators, headed by the finance minister. The idea to create this regulatory body was mooted by the Raghuram Rajan (ex RBI Governor) Committee in 2008. Finally in 2010, the then Finance Minister of India, Pranab Mukherjee, decided to set up such an autonomous body dealing with macro prudential and financial regularities in the entire financial sector of India.
