RBI official says SRO for fintech in a year

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) proposed framework for a self regulatory organisation (SRO) for the fintech sector is likely to come up within a year.

“Everything has to be done in a phased manner. We don’t want to go for Fintech regulations immediately but what the Governor announced is the SRO mechanism that is likely to come within this year,” Ajay Kumar Choudhary, executive director at RBI told reporters on the sidelines
of an Assocham event.

The RBI governor Shaktikanta Das has called for self-regulation among fintechs, and setting up an SRO structure. In its monetary policy statement this month the RBI had announced that it would issue an omnibus framework for SRO recognition for regulated entities which will be common for all SROs, irrespective of the sector.

The SROs would play an important role in strengthening compliance culture among their members while also providing a consultative platform with the RBI for responsible policy making, promoting ethics and addressing issues like market integrity, data privacy, and cybersecurity.

Choudhary also told reporters that the central bank has started a wholesale pilot of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in the call money market.

"It (the wholesale pilot of CBDC) has started, but volumes are not pretty well as it is a test of the system, accounting and multiple things, and the pilot is to test all those things,” Choudhary said.