BENGALURU: Against the backdrop of the Paytm Payments Bank controversy, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and other regulators met the founders of fintech companies on Monday.
The focus of the meeting was working out ways to ensure compliance of rules by fintech companies and other startups.
It was decided during the meeting that RBI, DPIIT and ministry of finance will look at the change of ownership holding/control of listed fintech companies to enable them to be in-sync with regulatory compliance.
The finance minister asked regulators to hold monthly meetings with the fintech firms to address their issues and concerns. Among other things, the meeting also discussed Simplification and digitisation of KYC across all fintech segments.
India has about 10,244 fintech entities, which is the third largest in the world. During the meeting, it was said that innovative solutions by fintech companies are essential to the financial services sector while ensuring strict compliance with regulations.
Sources told TNIE that no Paytm related anxiety/concerns were shown by the start-up founders and FinTech entities during the meeting today.
It was noted that Aadhar, UPI, API Setu among others have acted as enablers for start-up and fintech organisations and simplified incorporation of companies, recognition of P2P Lenders as Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs), regulatory sandbox, Fintech repository, SRO Framework for Fintech, etc have facilitated the start-up ecosystem in India.
Top executives of 50 firms including Razorpay, CRED, and venture capital firm PeakXV and various associations such as Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE) attended the meeting.
The number of start-ups in India have grown significantly from just over 300 in 2016 to over 1.17 lakh in 2023 generating more than 12.4 lakh jobs, and 47% of the start-ups have at least one woman director.