T Rabi Sankar named RBI deputy governor to succeed B P Kanungo

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) executive director T Rabi Sankar has been named as the fourth Deputy Governor of the central bank, sources said.

Rabi Sankar is in charge of the payments system, fintech, information technology and risk management at the RBI. He succeeds B P Kanungo as the deputy governor, who retired on April 2 after getting a one year extension in his position. 

Rabi Sankar now joins Mahesh Kumar Jain, Michael Patra and Rajeshwar Rao as the fourth deputy governor of the central bank. 

Rabi Sankar has an M Phil in Economics degree and has handled all critical departments at the RBI, including debt management, which was the domain of Kanungo. 

Rabi Sankar is widely respected among economists community for his original thoughts and has been a member of various committees including those for forming marginal cost of funds based lending system, hedging of commodity price risk, integration of commodity spot and derivatives markets, including two important working group of the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) on capital markets and dollar funding markets. 

During 2005-11, he was the International Monetary Fund (IMF) appointed consultant to the government and central bank of Bangladesh on developing the bond market and debt management process. He also worked with the Ministry of Finance during 2008-2014 on deputation. 

Apart from serving in RBI, he was made the chairman of RBI subsidiary Indian Financial Technology and Allied Services (IFTAS) in June 2020.