Select Page


India’s financial stability panel plans to roll out a uniform approach to verifying customers across the financial sector and prevent illegal lending based on online applications, it said on Wednesday.

It is unclear when the plans will be enforced. Their announcement follows a meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC), which brings together all the country’s financial regulators.

India’s fintech sector has been thrown into crisis after India’s banking regulator on Jan. 31 directed Paytm Payments Bank to stop accepting fresh deposits in its accounts or popular wallets from March. The regulator cited “persistent non-compliances and continued material supervisory concerns in the bank”.

Wednesday’s statement made no direct reference to Paytm Payments Bank, saying only the FSDC discussed Know Your Customer (KYC) norms.

Different financial institutions currently follow different ways to verify the account holders and the panel said the process should be standardised to enable “inter-usability of KYC records across the financial sector”.

Wednesday’s statement said the body also discussed steps to prevent the harmful effects of illegal online lending apps.

The apps, which became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, charged high interest rates and employed predatory recovery practices.

  • Published On Feb 22, 2024 at 07:55 AM IST

Join the community of 2M+ industry professionals

Subscribe to our newsletter to get latest insights & analysis.

Download ETBFSI App

  • Get Realtime updates
  • Save your favourite articles

icon g play

icon app store


Scan to download App
bfsi barcode

Share it on social networks