Create superior substitute for gold investments: Rana Kapoor

One of such products within the banking system could be a deposit account linked to gold returns, Kapoor told PTI in an interview.

"While cultural demand for gold is unlikely to come down for a country like India, the investment demand for gold can definitely be reduced through a multi-pronged approach," said Kapoor during his visit to recently ended World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in the Swiss alpine resort town of Davos.

He was commenting on the steps being taken by the government to lower gold imports and to dissuade investors from parking their money into idle assets like gold and move to more productive assets like equity.

Some of the recent steps in this regard include hike in import duty on gold from 4 per cent to 6 per cent, linking gold ETFs with the Gold Deposit Scheme (GDS) to enable mutual funds to unlock their physical gold and relaxation of GDS norms for retail investors by reducing the tenure of deposits to six months from a minimum of three years earlier.

"While the administrative steps are expected to lead to somewhat lower gold imports, it is important to dissuade the incremental buildup of quantum of gold imports," Kapoor said.

"At the micro level, the banking system can effectively intermediate through a gold return linked deposit account, which will represent notional units of gold and provide gold price return in weight terms," he said.

Kapoor said such a product would defer the need for investment in gold to a future date and could potentially lead to a reduction in the gold imports.

"As a second order step, the financial system could then be utilised to partially monetise the existing stock of gold in the country," he said.

Yes Bank chief further said policies should be geared towards maintaining a healthy growth-inflation balance in the country, while providing domestic investors opportunities to invest in alternate asset classes.

"Widening and deepening of the banking and financial markets amid adequate regulatory architecture will effectively create superior substitutes for gold investments," he added.

Asked about the position of Indian economy and markets among the foreign investors, especially after the recent wave of reforms, Kapoor said government policymaking has been significantly revitalised in the last five months, after a lull. (MORE)