RBI To Allow Funds Transfer Among Mobile Wallets

Soon, you will be able to transfer funds between mobile wallets.

The Reserve Bank of India will make prepaid payment instruments like e-wallets, gift cards and meal coupons interoperable for customers complying with the central bank’s know your customer guidelines.

Inter-operability among KYC compliant prepaid instruments will be implemented in six months after the RBI issues its revised norms within a week by October 11, the central bank said as part of its developmental and regulatory policies.

The move meets a demand of the prepaid payments industry. As of now, a wallet of one financial technology company or a bank cannot be used to transfer funds to another. Relaxed norms will boost peer-to-peer transactions in India since currently money can only be transferred between two bank accounts.

Peer-To-Peer Lending Guidelines

The RBI released its final guidelines on peer-to-peer lending platforms and a report drafted by an internal committee on the marginal cost of funds-based lending rate later in the day. As part of the P2P lending guidelines, the central bank capped borrowing and lending on a peer-to-peer platform by an individual at Rs 50,000.

The central bank brought such platforms under regulation last month by treating them on a par with non-bank companies. The RBI had released a discussion paper in May last year seeking comments from stakeholders.

A New Rate Mechanism Proposal

A panel set up by the RBI has suggested that India move to linking lending rates to an external benchmark rate in a time-bound manner, the central bank said in its statement. The regulator had formed an internal study group to assess the marginal cost of funds-based lending rate mechanism.

The RBI, in its last monetary policy announcement in August, had noted that it was not very happy with the way MCLR was implemented by banks and that the level of transmission of lower rates was not adequate.

Also Read: RBI Keeps Rates Unchanged, Slashes Growth Forecast

Public Credit Registry

The regulator set up a high-level task force on public credit registry under YM Deosthalee, former chairman and managing director of L&T Finance Holdings. It will review the availability of information on credit and identify the gaps a public registry could fill.

The task force will study best international practices to determine the scope, the type of information and the credit markets that such a registry should cover.

Identifier Tag For Large Corporate Borrowers

As part of its guidelines to control large loan exposures, the banking regulator asked big corporate borrowers with fund and non-fund based exposures worth Rs 5 crore and above from a bank to get a large entity identifier registration. The RBI has also asked banks to capture the information in the central repository of information on large credit (CRILC).

• The RBI will put in place a framework for authorising electronic trading platforms for financial market instruments regulated by the central bank. It shall include detailed eligibility criteria, technology requirements and reporting standards, the central bank said. All new and existing platforms would be required to obtain authorisation.
• Specified stock exchanges, in addition to scheduled banks and primary dealers, will be allowed to act as aggregators or facilitators for retail investor bids in the non-competitive segment for the auction of dated securities and treasury bills of the Government of India, the regulator said.
• The RBI will come out with guidelines to develop liquidity in the State Development Loan market, spread the issuance of SDLs, move towards market-based pricing that is sensitive to an individual state’s fiscal risk metrics, and reduce uncertainties in announcement of auction results. The RBI will come up with specific regulations by the end of this month.

Also Read: RBI Gives Foreigners Reasons to Cheer While Holding Rates