RBI beats US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank hands down on Twitter
RBI has the maximum number of Twitter followers across all central banks in the worldRBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has 1.11 lakh followers on Twitter
MUMBAI : Although with less monetary firepower, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has beaten US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank on Twitter by emerging as the most popular central bank on the microblogging site.
RBI's Twitter handle has 7.45 lakh followers while the world's most powerful central bank US Federal Reserve has only about 6.17 lakh followers and the Frankfurt-headquartered European Central Bank, the second most powerful monetary authority in the world, has 5.55 lakh followers.
The 85-year-old RBI, which got a Twitter account in January 2012, and its Governor Shaktikanta Das have separate Twitter handles. An analysis of official Twitter accounts of major central banks shows that RBI has the maximum number of followers.
On April 20 alone, the handle saw 1.31 lakh new followers, according to an official with the central bank, who attributes the massive spike to an ongoing campaign. Since March 2019, the count of followers has more than doubled from just about 3,42,000 to over 7,50,000 to data, the official said.
During the ongoing seven-week lockdown that began from March 25, the number of followers has increased by more than 1.5 lakh, the official said.
In March 2019, RBI was at the sixth position among major central banks and at the fourth place before the lockdown in terms of followers, the official added.
Closely behind RBI is the Bank Indonesia, the central bank of the East Asian nation, with 7.15 lakh followers. At the third spot is Banco de Mexico -- the apex bank of Mexico -- with 7.11 lakh followers on the microblogging site.
Besides its main Twitter handle, RBI had another Twitter account called 'RBI Says' and also started a Facebook page with the same name in early April. At that time, it also launched a safety campaign advising people to remain healthy and safe by not going to bank branches as the nation was put under a lockdown to help contain the spread of coronavirus infections.
The RBI campaign featuring cine star Amitabh Bachchan to drive public awareness about going digital and keeping safe distance in times of the coronavirus pandemic, has also helped increase the number of followers, as per the official.
The Bank of Japan, which created its Twitter account in October 2011, has 27,100 followers, while Bank of England has around 3.03 lakh followers on its account created in January 2009, as per the data.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has 1.11 lakh followers. Ever since Das was air-dashed to fill the vacuum created by the sudden resignation of his media-shy predecessor Urjit Patel in December 2018, RBI has been emphasising on simplifying banking and its workings to the youth, by aggressively tapping social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
There is a need to take to these popular social media platforms to reach the youth as a part of its mass media awareness programmes, RBI said in its annual report released in August 2019.
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