The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released a medium-term strategy framework named ‘Utkarsh 2.0’, which emphasizes on several strategic pillars including rule of law, customer-centricity, inclusive finance, competitive markets, efficient technology, future-ready organization and focus on global India. RBI said that this framework will focus on simplifying regulations, deepening financial markets and increasing access, and will also prioritize digitalization and innovation in all its operations.
Emphasis on improving customer service
According to the RBI, the scheme will focus on improving customer service and financial inclusion, and also focus on efforts to strengthen market infrastructure and bring pricing transparency, especially in the case of government securities. Adoption of technology, including artificial intelligence and digitalization of internal processes, is expected to play a central role in this. At the institutional level, RBI aims to expand India’s global financial presence. This includes promoting internationalization of the rupee and expanding cross-border payment systems like UPI. The central bank said that the progress made under this framework will be monitored from time to time, and there will be scope for changes in it according to the changing financial circumstances.
RBI announced policy rate
Recently, in view of the risk of rising inflation amid the ongoing uncertainty at the global level, the Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday maintained the policy repo rate at 5.25 percent as expected. RBI has adopted a watch and wait policy while being cautious with this. The first bi-monthly monetary policy review of the current financial year 2026-27 has taken place at a time when there has been a significant rise in crude oil prices due to the nearly 40-day war in West Asia. This has increased inflationary pressure for countries like India that depend on fuel imports. However, the ceasefire between America, Israel and Iran also brings hope for revival at the global level.
Along with this, RBI has estimated India’s economic growth rate to be 6.9 percent for the current financial year 2026-27, which is less than the estimated 7.6 percent for the financial year 2025-26. According to the second advance estimate under the new GDP series (base year 2022-23), India’s real GDP (gross domestic product) growth is estimated at 7.6 percent in 2025-26. The Reserve Bank has estimated retail inflation to be 4.6 percent for the current financial year.