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Pallavi Rao

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Partner in the Disputes Resolution practice at the Delhi office of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. Apart from having extensive experience in civil and commercial litigation, Pallavi is also a registered patent agent and has vast experience in intellectual property litigation. She can be reached at pallavi.rao@cyrilshroff.com.

The last few years have seen an unprecedented rise in digital payment transactions via Payment Aggregators (“PA”), Payment Gateways (“PG”), and Unified Payments Interface (“UPI”), via third-party application providers (TPAPs), with PAs undergoing licensing by the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”), under the March 17, 2020, RBI PA/PG Guidelines. Retail payments historically would flow via NEFT/ RTGS/ IMPS, etc. However, UPI has now become the preferred payment mode for online payments, constituting a significant volume of small ticket retail payments in India, which is mostly via PAs. The payment architecture, which was earlier ‘card network’ driven via entities licensed under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (as a ‘payment system operator’), is increasingly moving towards PA/PGs, including for digital asset exchanges, online shopping, check-out financing and digital lending (where significant changes have been implemented by the RBI recently, including via the September 2022 Digital Lending Guidelines).…

Continue Reading FIG Paper (No. 18 – Series 1)- Technology/ Financial Services – Recent Law Enforcement Trends

FIG Paper

Pursuant to the Report of the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) Working Group on Digital Lending, issued on November 18, 2021, and the RBI Press Release on ‘Recommendations of the Working Group on Digital Lending – Implementation’, dated August 10, 2022 (“August Press Release”), the RBI released the Guidelines on Digital Lending on September 2, 2022 (“Guidelines”). Our Alert examines the key changes introduced and industry implications.…

Continue Reading FIG Paper (No. 17 – Series 2) – New Digital Lending Guidelines – Industry Implications

RBI guidance on loading of PPIs through credit lines

On June 20, 2022, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) clarified to authorised non-bank prepaid payment instrument (PPI) issuers that PPIs may not be loaded from credit lines, and any such practice should be stopped immediately.…

Continue Reading FIG Paper (No. 13) – RBI guidance on loading of PPIs through credit lines

FIG Papers

The recent Master Directions issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Credit cards and Debit cards – Issuance and Conduct Directions, 2022, dated April 21, 2022, is a consolidation of existing guidelines on the subject, except that it has brought about greater clarity by providing definitions on what is a credit card, credit limit and other related terminologies. In addition, it has spelt out more explicitly the scope of co-branding arrangements and the roles of card issuers and co-branding partners.…

Continue Reading FIG Papers (No. 12: Series-1) RBI Master Directions on Credit and Debit Cards

Fintech

The end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 has come bearing gifts for the financial technology (“Fintech”) sector particularly for the lending space. The Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) had amended the Credit Information Companies Regulations, 2006 (“Regulations”) on November 10, 2021 vide the Credit Information Companies (Amendment) Regulations, 2021  (“Amendment”)[1] – the first amendment since 2017 – expanding the scope of entities falling within the definition of ‘specified users’ under Regulation 3 to include “an entity engaged in the processing of information, for the support or benefit of credit institutions, and satisfying the criteria laid down by the Reserve Bank from time to time.”…

Continue Reading FIG Paper (No. 9) – RBI Press Release on ‘Specified Users’ – New Year Relief for Fintech Companies

The Epidemic Ordinance, 2020 - An ‘opportune’ armour for the protectors

The world is grappling with an unknown virus that has escalated to a global pandemic in no time. At the very forefront of this battle against the unknown, are the medical healthcare professionals who have been working relentlessly to treat the rising number of patients across the globe, sometimes even without adequate protective gear[1]. Therefore, it is disheartening when one comes across news regarding them being subject to unprovoked violence from the public[2] in this time of crisis. The need to protect these frontline healthcare professionals was felt strongly by the Indian government in order to ensure seamless treatment of patients during the current pandemic. With these objectives in mind, the President of India on April 22, 2020, promulgated the Epidemic Diseases Amendment Ordinance 2020 (“Amendment Ordinance”), to amend the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 (“Epidemic Act”).
Continue Reading The Epidemic Ordinance, 2020: An ‘opportune’ armour for the protectors?

Patent Licensing in times of Covid-19 Pandemic

The entire world has been grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic for some time now, and efforts are on to find a treatment protocol and vaccine. Several drugs and treatment therapies are being tried and tested to find a cure for this pandemic. In the middle of this fervent R&D activity, some questions come to mind — what about IP protection? How would companies commercialise a cure — if and when it is finally found? How would the cure be available to the public en-masse at affordable prices? Enter patent law and the aspect of Licencing.
Continue Reading To Protect or Not to Protect that is the Question : Patent Licensing in times of Covid-19 Pandemic