Search results: reserve bank of India

The online gaming industry, particularly real money gaming, has grown significantly. At the same time, the industry has experienced uncertainty and disruption, leading to an increased need for regulation and guidelines. The Ministry of...

Finance, bookkeeping, transaction-making, investment, credit, insurance and trade have always operated under the strict eye of the regulator. The sector has always been a conventional one and an authoritarian compliance regime has overseen its...

The US dollar is widely used in international trade and finance, with more than 70% of transactions using that currency. It also serves as the dominant reserve currency for central banks around the world....

On 11 April 2023, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) put in place a new framework, effective from 1 June 2023, encouraging RBI regulated entities (RE) to offer green deposits for financing green activities...

Recognising and rewarding exceptional legal work. Katherine Abraham reports India’s legal industry is experiencing a surge in activity, driven by increased deal-flow and record-breaking IPOs. While the most recognised law firms continue to dominate on...

Finance, book-keeping, transaction-making, investment, credit, insurance and trade have always operated under the strict eye of the regulator. The sector has always been a conventional one, and an authoritarian compliance regime has overseen its...

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have launched a real-time payment system linkage between Singapore's PayNow and India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI). According to the announcement, this is...

Are mandatory retirement ages for senior judges discriminatory? And are we pushing out our finest legal minds just as they hit their peaks of knowledge? Our regular columnist for sister publication China Business Law...

In lending transactions, standard practice is to obtain shortfall undertakings, that is meeting any shortfall in the repayment of the underlying facility from holding companies of the borrower or financially strong companies in the...

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is an integral part of the Indian economy. Over the years, India has emerged as a popular destination for FDI owing to its huge domestic demand, the availability of natural...

After delivering a pro-arbitration judgment in the case of NN Global Mercantile Pvt Ltd v M/s Indo Unique Flame Ltd and Ors, the Supreme Court referred the case to a constitution bench of the...

While curbs and regulation of the burgeoning online gaming industry are necessary, has the government gone too far? Freny Patel reports. A deep dive into amendments to India’s 2021 information technology rules and recently proposed...

The Ministry of Home Affairs has mandated the State Bank of India (SBI) to daily reporting on all details of overseas donors, including the purpose of remittances. In response, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has published draft guidelines for minimum capital requirements for market risk under the international Basel III framework. The bank has requested comments on the draft guidelines by 15...

India Business Law Journal reveals the standout deals and disputes of 2022 and the law firms that showed their worth in successfully concluding them Despite concerns of a resurgence in covid-19 cases at the beginning...

Securitisation is the aggregating of commercial debt and repackaging it as capital market instruments. India has separate regulatory frameworks for the securitisation of standard or performing assets, which involve banks and financial institutions, and...

Having completed a simplified takeover in seven working days under the 2003 Swiss merger act, Yashasvini Kumar, Pooja Gondalia and Bhakti Sampat look at how the approval process could be made quicker in India,...

Throughout history, money has taken many different forms, finally developing into the most widely used, paper currency. During the past decade, money has further evolved into something previously thought impossible, cryptocurrency. The ongoing global...

Fierce campaign to tame online space The digital sphere has been firmly in the sights of the government. When the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, were announced last year,...

As the world acknowledges the real threat of global recession, where and how a Company should invest has never been more challenging. General counsel hold the keys To unlocking opportunity, and more than ever...

A framework for the deployment of sovereign green bonds shows the government is committed to a marriage of climate and infrastructure. Environmental advocate Ashutosh Senger explains To tap finance from potential investors for deployment in...

While estate planning is an uncomfortable subject, it is also an unavoidable one for those looking to leave behind an enduring legacy, writes K Satish Kumar, the group chief legal officer of Intellect Design Arena,...

As the insolvency and bankruptcy board turns up the heat on insolvency practitioners, Karuna Sharma and Atul Malhotra examine the tools of inspection and investigation at their disposal to ensure compliance with the code T...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released a new regulatory framework for Asset Reconstruction Companies (ARCs) on 11 October allowing them to be resolution applicant (RA) entities under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016...

Changes proposed to competition act see mixed response The introduction of the Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2022, seeks to overhaul the competition law framework in India. Several competition law practitioners have hailed the bill for its...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently released a Concept Note on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) (CN) outlining the principles it will adopt when developing an ecosystem for India’s first CBDC or...

The April 2021 statement on developmental and regulatory policies of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) noted the growth of asset reconstruction companies (ARCs), mentioning that “their potential for resolving stressed assets is yet...

With the worst of the pandemic behind us, and despite looming clouds in the global economy and geopolitics, India Business Law Journal’s annual market survey finds law firms in a buoyant mood on the...

India’s digital lending industry, which is expected to grow in worth to USD1.3 trillion by the end of the decade, has been subject to a clampdown by the central bank. The Reserve Bank of...

S&R Associates represented Light Microfinance in its INR1.96 billion (USD23.7 million) series B funding round led by British International Investment along with existing investors Nordic Microfinance Initiative, Triple Jump and Incofin. The S&R team was...

India’s vibrant digital lending sector has grown at an unprecedented rate, increasing from USD9 billion in 2009 to USD110 billion a decade later. Participants in the industry include banks and financial institutions regulated by...

The Reserve Bank of India, in its monetary policy statement on 5 August 2022, directed all registered credit information companies (CICs) to appoint an internal ombudsman (IO) by 1 April 2023 for addressing grievances...

The Supreme Court’s judgment in the case of Vidarbha Industries Power v Axis Bank opened a Pandora’s box earlier this year when it unsettled a long established practice of the adjudicating authority admitting insolvency...

DSK Legal, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) and Link Legal advised in India amusement park Imagicaaworld Entertainment’s debt restructuring that saw Malpani Group acquire a 66.5% stake in its rival. Malpani’s acquisition in Imagicaaworld is valued...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced an extensive mechanism to accelerate cross-border trade settlements in Indian rupees (INR) in a move to bolster trade in the Indian currency. To execute the plan,...

In a move that aligns with global climate risk mitigation, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked banks in the country to promote sustainable financial management and embed environmental, social and governance (ESG)...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued notifications covering a range of foreign investment options to increase foreign exchange inflows in response to a weakening rupee and a tightening of global financial conditions. Liberalisation...

Consistent with its customer-protection orientation, and its hawkish stance towards the fintech sector, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) set up a working group in January 2021 to evaluate “digital lending including lending through...

On June 20, 2022, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued directions to all non-bank prepaid payment instrument (PPI) issuers that loading of PPIs through credit lines was not permitted (PPI credit circular). This...

On 6 July 2022, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a press release setting out measures it proposed to introduce to “mitigate volatility and dampen global spillovers” caused by “high risk aversion” gripping...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the deadline for card-on-file (CoF) tokenisation from 30 June to 30 September 2022, citing implementation issues highlighted by merchants. “Industry stakeholders have highlighted some issues related to...

A conflict has played out before several judicial forums over the fate of Future Retail, a company in grave health with creditors and two of the world’s richest men entangled in its fate. Freny...

Enduring challenges amid a perfect storm The country is in the midst of grappling with unfavourable circumstances such as high unemployment and high inflation. Together these can potentially become as disruptive as the pandemic, but...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued the Transfer of Loan Exposures Directions, 2021 (directions) in September 2021, which prescribe a comprehensive and robust framework to facilitate the sale, transfer and acquisition of loan...

As India’s foreign exchange reserves continue to shrink well below USD600 billion and the rupee continues to close at all-time lows, it is unlikely the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will lift the restriction...

To align the regulatory framework for non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) with mainstream governance practices, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced a scale-based regulatory framework for NBFCs in October 2021. This included governance-related requirements. The...

Rule 23(1) of the Foreign Exchange Management (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules 2019 (rules) provides that investments by foreign-owned or controlled companies (FOCC) in an Indian company shall be subject to “entry route, sectoral caps, pricing...

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No legacy as rich as honesty The world’s richest man Elon Musk’s move to take over Twitter has the world engrossed. Twitter’s hope of finding a white knight, a counter-offer to fend off Musk’s hostile...

India’s antitrust probe into the alleged collusion over fees charged by debt trustees of the State Bank of India, Axis Bank and IDBI Bank took a back seat following an intervention by the Bombay...

When the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was introduced in 2016, an exception was made under section 3(17) for financial service providers (FSP) to prevent them from being dragged into insolvency. The legislature has...

Microfinance regulation has previously focused on non-banking financial companies – microfinance institutions (NBFC – MFI), and not on other entities engaged in microfinance such as banks and other NBFCs. The Reserve Bank of India...

Traditional family-run businesses are giving way to a new age of startups and technology-driven business models. Given India Inc’s desire for a global footprint, migration or foreign passports are now common. Many families and...

The banking and financial services sector has long been a pioneer and centre of technological innovation, providing end-user banking and financial services. Fintech has emerged as a direct competitor to legacy banking, but has...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 7 April 2022, released draft guidelines for the processing and settlement of small-value export and import related payments facilitated by online export-import facilitators (OEIF) (draft guidelines). The...

On 14 March 2022, the government issued Press Note 1 of 2022 allowing 20% foreign direct investment (FDI) through the automatic route in the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) a corporation established and...

Reserve Bank of India's move to allow fintech companies to access credit information via credit bureaus is a positive move, but ownership and control issues remain unresolved, writes Kaushal Mathpal A s per the Reserve Bank...

Viable alternative or Dutch tulip? There should be little surprise that India continues to struggle with the knotty problem that is virtual currencies, which according to a May 2020 ruling of the Supreme Court, “elude...

The idea for a decentralised autonomous organisation, where the rules are baked into its code with no management structure or board of directors, has emerged with the rise of blockchain technology. Andrew Godwin examines...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a circular to raise the investment limit for foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) under the voluntary retention route (VRR) to INR2.5 trillion (USD32.93 billion). The earlier limit was...

Factoring is considered an important source of short-term and working capital financing for micro, small and medium enterprises. It enables them to obtain upfront credit for invoices raised, without over-leveraging balance sheets. Factoring is...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been gradually aligning the regulations applicable to banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs). Apart from implicitly recognising that NBFCs are fast narrowing the gap with banks in...

Digital lending in India has grown exponentially over the past 24 months powered by lending partnerships between fintech platforms and regulated lenders. A key driver has been non-traditional credit analytics that rely on alternative...

Lack of clarity over future legitimacy and plans to levy hefty taxes threaten to clip the wings of jittery cryptocurrency investors. Freny Patel reports Among many things, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has put the spotlight...

Current events dictate that ESG considerations are increasing in importance for companies as well as regulators, warns Ashutosh Senger, lead counsel at Florence Capital The challenges faced by societies due to the pandemic and the...

Facebook’s parent has threatened to call it quits in India as it fears the data privacy law could force it to modify or cease existing business practices. On 2 February, Meta Platform expressed concerns in...

Rather than being overly prescriptive, applying an even-handed approach to regulations will better serve the SEBI’s overall goals, write Aditya Bhargava and Sristi Yadav Traditionally, debt raising in India has been skewed to borrowings from banks. From a...

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The number of criminal cases filed against cheque defaulters has overwhelmed India’s judicial system. One obvious solution is to decriminalise what is often a civil dispute, but lawyers aren’t convinced that’s the answer. George...

Financial sector stakeholders keep a close watch on the release of statements from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on developmental and regulatory policies. These statements provide guidance on the RBI’s thought processes and...

The Securities and Exchanges Board of India (SEBI) has introduced a new sub-category under alternate investment funds to recognise special situation funds (SSFs). On 24 January 2022, the securities regulator notified the amended SEBI (Alternative...

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (code) provides for the comprehensive rules-based resolution of insolvent corporate debtors, and has become a significant and successful means of stressed asset resolution. The success of the code...

On 23 December 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) further extended for six months the deadline for removal of card-on-file (CoF) data. Payment aggregators (PAs) and merchants may thus continue to store customer...

Recognising the contribution of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to the banking system and the need to review the existing regulatory framework due to their changing risk profile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in...

In October 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released a scale-based regulatory framework for non-banking financial companies (NBFC) to tackle systemic risks posed by the sector. Continuing its steady march forward in aligning...

The absence of a climate change law leaves pressing concerns for India’s achievement of emission reduction goals, write Priti Suri and Arya Tripathy India is moving fast towards becoming the world’s most populous country, and...

Cryptocurrency regulation started in 2018 with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) prohibiting banks from involvement in crypto-based transactions. The Supreme Court overturned the ban, leading to significant growth in the trading of cryptocurrency,...

The Reserve Bank of India has revised its rules for securitisation and sale of loans to help banks improve liquidity and rebalance exposures. The revamp expands the types of assets that can be transferred and...

In recognition of the systemic importance of non-banking financial companies (NBFC) in credit delivery and their integration into the financial sector, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued directions on 15 November requiring NBFCs...

India stands on the cusp of a cryptocurrency boom even as a 2021 bill may scupper opportunities while also affecting prospects for non-fungible tokens, which are traded in cryptos. Raghavan Ramabadran and Sai Prashanth define the instruments and...

In-house Counsel Awards 2022 India Business Law Journal reveals the country’s leading in-house counsel and corporate legal teams in our very first awards. Gautam Kagalwala reports Individual AwardsTeam Awards For the inaugural India Business Law Journal In-house...

Ikigai, JSA assist crypto exchange on fundraise Ikigai Law advised fintech company Primestack, which operates the cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX, when it raised INR6.7 billion (USD90 million) in a series C funding. The round was led by...

Securitisation of standard assets is an important tool used by banks and financial institutions to increase liquidity in financial markets and to ensure access to loans and financial products for unbanked sections of society....

In the past half-decade, India has seen a great deal of investment and M&A activity in stressed assets. Large parts of this activity have focused on acquiring distressed companies through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy...

On 7 September 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a directive (CoF directive) extending the existing device-based framework for tokenisation to card-on-file tokenisation (CoFT). The CoF directive followed the RBI’s decision in a...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 27 August issued master directions on prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) with new classifications and to provide a framework for their authorisation, regulation and supervision. New companies setting up...

Ikigai Law advised fintech company Primestack, which operates and maintains cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX, when it raised INR6.7 billion (USD90 million) in series C funding. The round was led by B Capital Group and included existing...

Antares Legal represented lending and digital payments startup Resilient Innovations, which operates as BharatPe, on its recent USD370 million series E equity fundraise led by new investor Tiger Global. AZB & Partners advised Tiger Global,...

Regulating for a slice of tech pie Tax authorities across the globe have been denied access to big tech profits by strategies made possible because of the digitalisation of economies and the flattening of borders....

A new draft of the e-commerce rules was published in June 2021 and feedback is invited. The rules apply to all goods and services purchased or sold over electronic networks, including non-tangible products and...

With the central bank poised to begin the process of adopting an official digital currency, veteran finance adviser Shivanand Pandit assesses the checks and balances needed to safeguard the process The lawfulness of cryptocurrencies in...

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) comprehensive regulatory framework for microfinance prescribes requirements such as the nature of borrowers, maximum disbursement amounts and ceilings on interest rates and other charges. However, this framework applies...

With the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announcing that it will cease to provide the London interbank offered rate (Libor), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued an advisory to the banks on...

The globally accepted, decades-old financial benchmark, the London interbank offered rate (Libor), retires at the end of 2021 for most rates, or by mid-2023 for others. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 8...

Mastercard’s failure to comply with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) directive to store payment data in the country has left private sector banks including HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, RBL Bank and Yes Bank,...

Lynwood Reinhardt and Brooke Dorris examine the impact of private investment in public equity on de-SPAC transactions The SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, is a resurgent spin on the relatively well-trodden concept of a...

L&L Partners advised State Bank of India in a one-time restructuring of outstanding loans of about INR200 billion (USD2.69 billion) of Shapoorji Pallonji & Company. Desai & Diwanji advised Shapoorji Pallonji & Company, which...

Some Indian banks have formed the “Indian Banks’ Blockchain Infrastructure Company” (IBBIC), aiming to use blockchain technology for processing letters of credit (LC) in domestic transactions. The IBBIC is a world first in domestic...

Ashok Lalwani and Mark Bell explore the opportunities and risks associated with Indian companies taking the SPAC route With the accelerated rise of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) in the US and Europe in 2020...

The improvement of corporate governance norms of banks has been on the agenda for many years. However, after egregious irregularities and misconduct at the highest levels were found at some well-known banks and non-banking...

Since the Supreme Court overturned India's ban on cryptocurrencies, trading volumes have increased exponentially and home-grown crypto startups have blossomed. But the government has yet to establish a regulatory regime, and reports of another...

Trust structures are increasingly gaining popularity for wealth and succession planning in India where most businesses are family driven. Increased global business opportunities have led business families, particularly the younger generations, to migrate and...

As the Indian start-up ecosystem matures, there’s a growing trend among companies in cutting-edge industries to access new technologies, recruit the best talent and gain market share and advantage by buying global offshore businesses....

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 19 May 2021 issued a notification prescribing guidelines for mandatory interoperability for full KYC pre-paid payment instruments (PPIs). The notification is in line with the announcement by...

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The long-awaited Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2021, (ordinance) has amended the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (code), with the aim of reviving micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME). The ordinance has inserted...

SPACS have generated tremendous interest in India, but are these re-emerging investment tools really a practical alternative to IPOs and a panacea for reviving capital markets? And just how tightly should they be regulated?...

The Finance Act, 2021, amended section 16 of the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (IGST act). This second article examines the amended section 16(3) and section 16(4) by way of which a...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a notification on 12 February 2021 further restricting investments in non-banking financial companies (NBFC) from jurisdictions, which are on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) black list...

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are considered controversial entities – also known as blank cheque companies – that offer private businesses a fast-track procedure to go public, bypassing the traditional IPO process. It’s an...

Recently in Manish Kumar v Union of India, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of all the provisos added to section 7(1) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016(IBC), via the Insolvency and...

India plans to set up a so-called bad bank to deflate a post-pandemic rise in non-performing assets and help lenders clean their balance sheets. Will this be the panacea the country’s troubled banking sector...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced draft directions in December 2020 on call, notice and term money markets with “the objective of bringing consistency across products in terms of issuers, investors and other...

B Sriram has joined Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) as a senior adviser in the financial institutions group of the firm. He has more than 37 years of experience in all areas of banking and finance. Sriram...

In February 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued the RBI (Digital Payment Security Controls) Directions, 2021 (master directions). The trigger for these regulations was the exponential growth of digital payments and the...

The buying and selling of goods and services on technology platforms has grown exponentially during covid-19. A technology platform connects buyers and sellers and facilitates commercial transactions between them. E-commerce platforms, under the FDI...

India Business Law Journal reveals the top 100 foreign lawyers for India-related matters View the A-List The arrival of covid-19 brought about a need for agility among international lawyers – to adapt to a reality...

The foreign ownership cap for the sector is set to be raised to 74%, but prospective investors are waiting for details of yet-to-be announced 'safeguards' before they have a flutter. Freny Patel reports The proposal...

The pre-pack insolvency resolution process allows corporate debtors to take the wheel and steer their way out of tricky situations, but its success will depend on how certain roadblocks are bypassed. Akaant KM reports Unprecedented times...

On 15 January 2021, the Delhi High Court directed the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to respond to a writ petition filed by Dharanidhar Karimojji (petition) seeking the regulation of digital...