In the wake of cyber and IT fraud, former BSE Chairman S Ravi interprets the RBI's new master directive
Sethurathnam Ravi (S Ravi) is a chartered accountant (CA) based in India, promoter and managing partner of Ravi Rajan & Co. LLP, and the former Chairman of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). He is also on the Board of Directors of over 45 companies and organizations including IDBI Bank, LIC, ONGC, BHEL, and more.
He also serves as an Independent Director of the Tourism Finance Corporation of India In 2003, He was also appointed by the Government of India and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as Chairman of the Technical Experts Committee for Punjab & Sind Bank's strategic turnaround. In 2019, Ravi also joined SBI Payments Services Pvt. Ltd as one of the Board Directors.
Before joining BSE, Ravi served on boards of various companies such as UTI Company Pvt Ltd., SMERA Ratings, SBI-SG Global Securities, STCI Finance, and BOI Merchant Bankers. He also serves as a member of SEBI's takeover panel and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
The Board of PCBL at its meeting held on 31 January 2023 has appointed Dr. Sethurathnam Ravi as a Non-Executive Independent Director of the Company for an initial term of five consecutive years with effect from 15 March 2023.
The new comprehensive master direction on information technology governance, risk, controls, and assurance practices to be implemented by Regulated entities (REs) will be effective from 1st April 2024. Sethurathnam Ravi, former BSE Chairman speaks about how this will facilitate the easy administration of IT and cyber governance and compliance in place of the prevalent multiple circulars.
The master direction comprises scheduled commercial banks (excluding regional rural banks); small finance banks; payments banks; NBFCs in top, upper, and middle layers; and all Indian financial institutions and credit information companies.
“The master direction clearly outlines the role (including authority) of the board of directors, board-level committee, and senior management of these REs in discharging their responsibilities to protect the interests of customers and consolidates and updates the guidelines, instructions, and circulars on IT Governance Risk, Controls, Assurance Practices, and Business Continuity/ Disaster Recovery Management issued earlier”, S Ravi, former BSE Chairman informs the public.
S Ravi Bse also explains that the master direction makes it mandatory for the REs to put in place a robust IT Service Management Framework for supporting their information systems and infrastructure to ensure the operational resilience of their entire IT environment (including Disaster Recovery sites).
In the wake of cyber and IT fraud, RBI in its master direction has stressed the need for IT applications to have the necessary audit and system logging capability and ability to provide audit trails. Further, to strengthen the IT infrastructure, the RBI through its direction highlights the need to adopt internationally accepted and published standards that are not deprecated/ demonstrated to be insecure/ vulnerable and the configurations involved in implementing controls to be compliant with extant laws and regulatory instructions, the former BSE Chairman elucidates.
While the approval of strategies and policies related to the IT function lies in the hands of the Board, these directions put the responsibility on the CEO to institute effective oversight on the planning and execution of IT Strategy as well as to ensure that cyber security posture of the RE is robust; and overall, IT contributes to productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency in business operations.
The financial expert and former BSE Chairman, S Ravi Bse concluded by saying that the directions have designated a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) who will be responsible for driving IT/ cyber security, compliance and related regulatory guidelines, and administering policies of the RE.
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