The Watal Committee report was released in early December to make recommendations about Digital Payments in India. The report is titled: “Medium Term Recommendations to Strengthen Digital Payments Ecosystem” This talk takes you through the highlights and lowlights of the Watal Committee report. Malavika presents some of the Committee’s rationale and thinking as set out in the text of the report and gets into the details of each of the 13 recommendations that the report made. The Report’s recommendations could have far-reaching impacts on Indian financial systems design, particularly for the regulatory architecture and the operation of payment systems in the country – including (1) the set-up of an independent “Payments Regulatory Board” within the RBI, (2) large scale amendments to the main Payments legislation, the Payment and Settlement Systems Act 2007, and (3) several measures to Government around incentivising digital payments by absorbing costs into the system.

The Watal Committee report was released to make recommendations about Digital Payments in India. The report is titled: “Medium Term Recommendations to Strengthen Digital Payments Ecosystem”

Law, policy and regulation for customers making digital payments: IFMR - A Youtube Video

The past year has seen many commentaries on the rapid expansion of microfinance in India warning of the imminent consequences of unbalanced growth.

In December 2014, the Reserve Bank of India published the Charter of Customer Rights as a commitment to protecting the interests of consumers of financial services.

Non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) represent an important linkage between the formal banking sector and informal segments of the real economy in India (wage labourers, smallholder farmers, unorganised retail, and domestic workers) through the channelling of credit from the former to the latter. They have a significant presence in the microfinance, small business finance and commercial […]

Non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) represent an important linkage between the formal banking sector and informal segments of the real economy in India

The Future of Finance Initiative (FFI) is housed within the IFMR Finance Foundation (IFF) and aims to promote policy and regulatory strategies that protect citizens accessing finance given the sweeping changes that are reshaping retail financial services in India.

Shortly after Christmas last month, a press release from the Ministry of Finance on 28th December announced that the Committee on Digital Payments (chaired by Ratan P. Watal) had submitted its Report.

Due to the demonetisation of currency and recall of the currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 denominations announced by the government there was some panic in the initial days and the mandis were closed for some days.