Rohit Jain: Building deep and resilient financial markets for a Viksit Bharat

Mr. Rohit Jain, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, delivered a keynote address at the Financial Institutions Leadership conference in Mumbai on July 24, 2026. The event was organized by Standard Chartered Bank and aimed to discuss the development of India's financial markets in support of the country's aspirations to become a developed economy by 2047.

Mr. Jain began by highlighting the importance of financial markets in converting scale into productive financing, ensuring liquidity for reliable price discovery and innovation for effective risk management. He emphasized that India's economic ambitions require substantial mobilization of long-term capital and efficient distribution of risk through market-based finance.

The Deputy Governor noted that India's financial markets have undergone significant transformation over the past three decades, moving from administered rates to market-determined pricing, auction-based government borrowing, and sophisticated trading, clearing, and settlement infrastructure. The government securities market has become the pricing backbone for rupee financial assets, while money, foreign exchange, and derivative markets have expanded. Indian government securities have also been integrated into global bond indices.

However, the demands of the coming decades will be substantially greater. India will require long-term capital for infrastructure, manufacturing, urban development, technology, and enterprise expansion both domestically and internationally. The Deputy Governor emphasized that a broader range of channels for converting savings into investment is necessary, alongside the evolving pattern of domestic savings through insurance, pensions, mutual funds, and other market-linked instruments.

Different segments of the market perform complementary functions, with government securities markets financing public investment, corporate bond markets connecting long-term savings with private investment, money markets strengthening monetary transmission and liquidity management, and foreign exchange and derivative markets enabling risk management. Market development is not limited to treasuries or dealing rooms; it directly impacts the cost and availability of capital across the economy.

Mr. Jain proposed three propositions for the development of India's financial markets:

1. India's economic ambitions require its financial markets to mobilize substantially more long-term capital and distribute risk more efficiently.

2. Moving from scale to depth, making the markets deeper, broader, and more resilient.

3. Building these markets before the economy reaches developed status, rather than after.

The Deputy Governor concluded by acknowledging the crucial role of financial markets in supporting India's development journey and the need for a comprehensive approach to market-building.