I will give my best, says RBI's Deputy Governor Viral Acharya

RBI's newly appointed Deputy Governor Viral Acharya, a noted economist, today said he will give his best in the new role.

"I am honoured at being offered the opportunity and hope to give it my best," Acharya told PTI a day after being named the Deputy Governor.

Acharya, who has been appointed for a term of three years, would take charge on January 20, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in a late evening statement on Wednesday.

He would look after the Monetary Policy and Research cluster and would fill the post that became vacant after Urjit Patel was made RBI Governor.

The existing three Deputy Governors are S S Mundra, N S Vishwanathan and R Gandhi.

Currently, Acharya is serving as C V Starr Professor of Economics, Department of Finance at the New York University- Stern School of Business. He holds a PhD in Finance from the Stern School of Business, NYU.

Acharya is known for his research in theoretical and empirical analysis of systemic risks of the financial sector, its regulation and genesis in government-induced distortions, according to the profile on the NYU website.

Among others, he is a Member of the Advisory Council of the RBI Academy.

Like former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, Acharya comes from an academic background and has also co-authored at least three papers with him.

Acharya has often praised Rajan for his work and once said "Raghu has been a great source of inspiration for me".

While delivering the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics plenary lecture in 2013, Acharya had narrated an incident when someone asked him on a flight whether he was Raghuram Rajan, after seeing him, an Indian, with papers on banking and crises.

He quipped that was the day when he realised that if he had Rajan as a "role model" and could get even 5-10 per cent of him, he could have easily passed off as "poor man's Raghuram Rajan" on flights.

Just like Rajan, Acharya has also been a strong votary of the independence of central banks and favoured them being "democratically accountable, yet be operationally independent from political influence".