Dr. R. B. Barman, former Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India, holds a Masters degree in Statistics and Ph.D. in Industrial Economics. The main areas of his professional interest also include Business Information Technology and Payment Systems.
Dr. Barman is Advisor to the the National Payments Corporation of India, which is entrusted with the responsibility of setting up a state-of-the-art retail payment system for India. His contributions in the development of RTGS, NEFT, NECS, Mobile Payments, ATMs and the policy thereof are well known.
Dr. Barman spearheaded the Business Intelligence initiative of the Reserve Bank, which in 2001 was one of the earliest such initiative. The subject orientation and the data model thereon was a novelty, which many central banks followed.
Dr. Barman contributed richly in the area of Official Statistics – particularly on price and output statistics. His contributions in this area spans several articles.
Dr. Barman was President of The Indian Econometric Society, Vice President of The Indian Association for Research in National Income and Wealth and Parton of Indian Society on Statistics and Computer Applications.
In international arena, Dr. Barman was Vice Chairman of Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics, BIS and Member of the International Data Forum.
Post retirement, Dr. Barman was Visitor, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research and Adviser (Research), Indian Institute of Capital Market. He is Adjunct Faculty of the C R Rao Advanced Institute for Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Applications, Hyderabad.
Dr. Barman is Chairman of Research Advisory Committee of the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology, Hyderabad.
Dr. Barman is associated with a number of organizations as Director of Board, Adviser and Consultant.