Mumbai, May 24 -- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday, 16 May, mandated non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) with assets of over '5,000 crore to appoint chief risk officers (CROs). The central bank said that in view of the increasing role of NBFCs in direct credit intermediation, there is a need to augment risk management practices. RBI's move comes in the wake of ongoing rating downgrades of non-banks, raising fears of yet another liquidity crisis. Following a series of defaults by Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd last year, mutual funds with exposure to debt papers of the company had to write off a chunk of their holdings. This, and the ensuing defaults by some NBFCs had led to a liquidity crisis. The primary r...