Government panel to boost fintech reach

Among other things, the Steering Committee would look at the ways to make fintech related regulations more flexible and generate increased entrepreneurship in the sector, a Finance Ministry release said here. The Union Budget 2018-19, presented in Parliament last month, contains the proposal for forming such a committee. “The government constitutes a Steering Committee on Fintech to consider various issues relating to development of the sector in India with a view to make regulations more flexible and generate enhanced entrepreneurship in an area where India has distinctive comparative strengths visa-vis other emerging economies,” it said.

“The Steering Committee will also focus on how Fintech can be leveraged to enhance financial inclusion of MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises).” FinTech is a rapidly evolving segment of the financial services sector where technology focused start-ups and other market entrants are disrupting how the financial services industry traditionally operates. Some known fintech companies operating in India are Paytm, MobiKwik, BankBazaar and PolicyBazaar. Besides taking stock of the developments in the fintech sector globally, the committee’s terms of reference include analysing “the regulatory regime spread over different entities that has impacted the growth of Fintech in India.”