Member of RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee joins board of Digital Currency Research Body

New Delhi | 23^rd September 2021: Policy 4.0, India’s leading digital currency policy research body, today announced the appointment of its advisory board composed of key policy thought leaders. The advisory board includes distinguished monetary and financial institution scholars whose focus will be to guide and support the team in the development of innovative policy frameworks for India.

The board comprises of Ms. Ashima Goyal, member of the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee, Mr. Sandeep Parekh, a former regulator with SEBI and leading Indian financial regulatory expert, Dr. Douglas Arner, international financial regulatory expert and participant with the BIS, G20 FATF, and other global forums on digital currency regulation, Mr. Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, a two-time member of India’s National Security Advisory Board and Mr. Dilip Cherian, Co-Founder of Perfect Relations. The board brings a multi-disciplinary approach to digital asset and policy-making through their experience with the government, regulators, and international policy-making.

• Ashima Goyal is one of the key members of the Monetary Policy Committee of India. She has previously served on the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and the RBI technical advisory for monetary policy. She has been appointed as Emeritus Professor at IGIDR and her achievements in the field of Economics have won her multiple awards. She was also recognized as one of the four Most Powerful Women in Economics by Business Today (2008). Ms. Goyal’s understanding of the currency dynamics in India and the core economic concerns of digital assets will help the Policy 4.0 team develop comprehensive solutions.

• Sandeep Parekh was an Executive Director with the Legal Affairs and the Enforcement Departments at Securities and Exchange Board of India. He is the Managing Partner of Finsec Law Advisors, a financial sector law firm based in Mumbai. He has also been a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. His thorough command over Indian financial regulation and capital markets, and involvement with several committees of the SEBI and RBI, will help the team develop frameworks well suited for the Indian regulatory system.

•  Douglas W. Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law, an RGC Senior Fellow, and Associate Dean (Taught Postgraduate) of the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong.  Mr. Arner specialises in economic and financial law, regulation and development. He coordinates closely with the BIS, IMF, G20 FATF and other global forums shaping digital asset regulation and his guidance will help the team build frameworks on par with global developments.

• Dilip Cherian created Perfect Relations and is a leader in policy and external communications in India. He authors two widely read columns in leading Indian publications on macroeconomics, Indian bureaucracy and polity. Apart from being a board member of many international firms, Mr. Cherian is a visiting faculty in many universities of repute such as the London School of Economics and IIM Ahmedabad. His guidance will help the firm in developing its external relations.
•  Pramit Pal Chaudhuri served two terms on the National Security Advisory Board to two Prime Ministers of India from 2011 to 2015 where he was a member of its task forces on maritime security, neighbourhood policy, and China among others. He is a Distinguished Fellow and Head of Strategic Affairs at the Ananta Aspen Centre, the Indian affiliate of the Aspen Institute. Pramit is a senior columnist of the Hindustan Times, New Delhi, and served as the paper’s Foreign Editor for 20 years. He has a formidable grasp over the geostrategic climate in which India operates and will guide the team on national security.

•  Ms. Tanvi Ratna, Founder & CEO, Policy 4.0, is also be a part of the board. She is an engineer and policy analyst and a recognized global expert in digital currency regulation and CBDC topics. She previously led blockchain projects at EY India and was a Fellow on cryptocurrency regulation at the New America foundation in Washington DC. She has had deep experience in policy, having worked with leading decision-makers such as the Indian Prime Minister, the Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill, and multiple central and state government agencies in India. As the Founder & CEO for Policy 4.0, Tanvi is responsible for steering the organization overall across its verticals of work.

On the occasion of the launch of the board, Ms. Tanvi said, “We are very excited to have such an accomplished panel of thought leaders support us in our mission of building cutting edge policy frameworks for emerging technology. Making policy for digital currency and digital assets is much harder than making regulations alone. Regulatory functions of the government are much more straightforward and rule-based compared to the policy, where an amalgamation of national priorities has to be thought through together. In our past work, we have been honoured to have opportunities to deliberate closely with the government on topics of digital currency. We believe the learned guidance of our board, which comprises some of the finest economics, legal and national security minds of the country, will help us build very innovative concepts which can propel India to a position of leadership in emerging technologies”.