Regulation

The Reserve Bank performs its regulatory functions from the mandate provided from  laws enacted for the different industries that it supervises.  Under these laws, the Bank has the power to licence entities and carry out its supervisory role.  In doing so, the Bank issues supervision policy statements to set standards and requirements for licensed entities, to meet the objectives set under these Acts. In order to encourage and monitor compliance to these requirements, the Reserve Bank undertakes supervisory activities, which it does, both on an offsite and onsite basis.

Offsite supervision refers to assessment of financial returns and information of licensees, that are received at specified intervals. From the review of information, the Bank then assesses the condition of licensed financial institutions against prudential benchmarks and risk indicators. Onsite supervision involves the undertaking of regulatory audits of these licensed institutions. These visits can be triggered through the offsite supervisory process, or through set audit cycles for the different industries.  The scope of the visit can either be entity specific or industry wide (thematic), focusing on specific risk areas or as and when regulatory issues develop during the course of supervision.

Provided on the links are the laws and the supervision policies that have been issued and are in effect.  These supervision policies are either (1) issued to specific industries or (2) issued to a range of industries (known as prudential supervision policy statement or PSPS).