No proposal to regulate financial influencers: Nirmala Sitharaman

NEW DELHI: The government has not received any proposal to regulate financial influencers on social media, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Sunday at an event in Karnataka’s Tumakuru district. However, she also said that the Centre is working with other ministries to clamp down on ponzi apps. 

She stated that seven out of 10 influencers are driven by some other considerations, while only three or four give objective advice. The Ministry of Finance along with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are working together to clamp down on fraudulent apps offering financial solutions, Sitharaman said. 

“Many of these apps are ponzi.  We, the Finance Ministry, MEITY and RBI are working together, clamping down on them like never before,” she said while further adding that the government doesn’t want people’s hard-earned money to be looted by these apps. A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud where new investors lose all their money and the existing investors get all the benefits.  

“Financial influencers are all across there. A very strong sense of caution is required in each one of us to make sure that we do double checking, counter checking and talking with people. Don’t go as a flock into something because somebody has gone and you should also go without your due diligence,” she added.  She stressed that people should be very careful as it is their hard-earned money.