Greater Collaboration Needed Among Regulator, Public and Private Sector to Harness Fintech's Full Potential

Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi on Tuesday underscored that there is a need for greater collaboration among the government, regulator, public and the private sector to harness the full potential of start-up and fintech sector. 

Speaking at a half-day workshop here, Joshi said fintechs are more technology and innovation oriented, and they draw the traction of the regulators and law enforcement agencies (LEAs) when they grow their businesses over a period of time. 

While fintech associations presented the operational modalities and key challenges faced by fintech companies, LEAs from states shared their best practices on curbing cybercrime and financial frauds, the finance ministry said in a statement. 

During the workshop, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), highlighted issues such as mule accounts, ATM hotspots, hotspot branches and fintech merchant abuse. The I4C also talked about through its Citizen Financial Cyber Frauds Reporting and Management System. 

It was emphasised that an indigenous transaction monitoring and anti-money laundering (AML) system catering to Indian fraud and the crime scenario may be developed by the fintech companies, the statement said. 

The Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance, and I4C, Ministry of Home Affairs, jointly organised the workshop with LEAs, and start-ups and fintech ecosystem partners.

The workshop was conducted in continuation of the last interaction of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman with the start-up and fintech companies on February 26. 

Some of the issues discussed during the workshop included the role of technology in providing accessibility to financial services, strategy to control money mules, real-time monitoring of data infringement by both fintech companies and LEAs, and geo-tagging of digital transactions to track money trails. 

Besides, conducting regular audits of digital KYC for fostering trust and accountability, establishing a mechanism for freezing and unfreezing of accounts for faster recovery of defrauded money, and devising a mechanism to ensure data privacy and prevention of data theft were also deliberated. 

The insights focused on emerging trends of cybercrime and financial frauds were provided by Gujarat, Haryana, and Uttarakhand police departments along with I4C, the statement said. 

The workshop was attended by the heads of around 60 fintech companies, four fintech associations, 23 state police departments, CBI, ED, FIU-Ind and central government ministries and departments. 

Regulators and other agencies concerned such as Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) were also part of the workshop.