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RBI Payment Regulations - 2009 to 2021 - Bank nodals to PA PG licenses

Introduction:

In early March 2020, a regulatory moratorium imposed on a private bank in India froze the country’s digital payments ecosystem. Many payment aggregators (“PA”) and payment gateways (“PG”) had set up nodal accounts with this bank, including others, and it raised a question on whether the customer funds pooled in those accounts were bankruptcy ‘remote’. Within 10 days, the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) issued the payment aggregator and gateway guidelines (“PA/PG Guidelines”) on March 17, 2020, under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (“PSSA”), to regulate PAs and prescribe baseline technology standards for PAs and PGs.
Continue Reading FIG Papers (No. 5 : Series -1) : RBI Payment Regulations – 2009 to 2021: Bank ‘nodals’ to PA/PG licenses! 

Cryptocurrency in India

On March 4, 2020, the Supreme Court of India (“Court”) in Internet and Mobile Association of India v. Reserve Bank of India[1] (“Judgement”) set aside the circular issued by the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) on April 6, 2018 (“Circular”)[2]. This Judgment marks the second occasion, in recent times, when the Supreme Court has reversed a policy decision of the RBI [3]. The Circular had restricted all entities regulated by the RBI, including nationalised banks, scheduled commercial banks, NBFCs, cooperative banks, payment system operators and other intermediaries (“Regulated Entities”) from dealing in or providing services for facilitating ‘any person or entity dealing with, or settling’ virtual currencies.

Thus, while the Circular did not expressly proscribe peer-to-peer trading in virtual currencies, it severely restricted the conversion of virtual currency into fiat currencies and impaired the ability of businesses which dealt with virtual currencies to access financial services in India.
Continue Reading Virtual Currencies in India: A New Dawn

RBI FRAMEWORK FOR RESOLUTION OF STRESSED ASSETS BLOG

The Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) has issued the Reserve Bank of India (Prudential Framework for Resolution of Stressed Assets) Directions, 2019 (“New Framework”) on June 07, 2019[1] in which the RBI has continued the core principles of its circular dated February 12, 2018 (“February 12 Circular”) and has added provisions encouraging both informal and formal restructuring in India. The New Framework creates an enabling framework for restructuring and resolutions outside the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“IBC”) as well as encourages use of IBC as a restructuring tool. It applies to banks, financial institutions as well as large non-banking financing companies (“NBFCs”) (the February 12 Circular did not apply to NBFCs) and also requires asset reconstruction companies to adhere to the relevant resolution framework under the inter-creditor agreement (see below).
Continue Reading BANKS TO LEAD RESOLUTION EFFORTS – THE NEW RBI FRAMEWORK FOR RESOLUTION OF STRESSED ASSETS

RBI’s Fintech Sandbox Proposal Startups

Technological innovation in the financial space, popularly known as ‘fintech’, has been at the forefront of regulatory thinking in recent times and is widely considered to be the panacea to the thorny issues of financial inclusion and ease of access to financial products/solutions, etc.

In 2018, the inter-regulatory Working Group (WG) set up by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to review the granular aspects of fintech and its implications, released a report being the ‘Report of the Working Group on FinTech and Digital banking’. One of the WG’s key recommendations was the introduction of an appropriate framework for the creation of a regulatory sandbox (RS) where the RBI could provide the requisite regulatory guidance to test products in a controlled environment.
Continue Reading Learning by Doing? The RBI’s Fintech Sandbox Proposal

RBI Circular - Insolvency and Bankruptcy Blog

The Supreme Court’s judgment in Dharani Sugars and Chemicals Limited vs. Union of India is examined herein.

The Supreme Court in Dharani Sugars and Chemicals Limited vs. Union of India & Others (Dharani Sugars) has struck down the circular dated February 12, 2018, containing the revised framework for resolution of stressed assets (RBI Circular) issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on the ground of it being ultra vires Section 35AA of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 (Banking Regulation Act).

Section 35AA was introduced by Parliament in 2017 to confer power on Central Government to authorise the RBI to give directions to any bank or banks to initiate an insolvency resolution process under the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) in respect of ‘a default’. The RBI Circular was challenged, inter alia, on the basis that Section 35AA does not empower the RBI to issue directions for reference to the IBC of all cases without considering specific defaults.Continue Reading Dharani Sugars v. Union of India: RBI’s Regulatory Powers Re-affirmed by the Supreme Court