Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday chaired the 19th Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) meeting in New Delhi, where he reviewed the liquidity crisis prevalent in Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs).
Headed by the Finance Minister, the meeting saw the participation of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairman Ajay Tyagi and heads of other regulators.
The council under Jaitley reviewed the current global and domestic economic situation and the financial sector's performance. They also reviewed the issue of real interest rate and also decided that both the regulators and the Centre should keep a close watch on the developing situation and take all necessary measures.
The council also took note of how to strengthen cybersecurity in the financial sector including the progress made towards setting up a Computer Emergency Response Team in the Financial Sector (CERT-Fin) under a statutory framework. It also deliberated on the need for identifying and securing critical information infrastructure in the financial sector.
Deliberating on the issues and challenges of crypto assets/currency, the FDSC has chalked out a plan to devise an appropriate legal framework to ban the use of private cryptocurrencies in India and encourage the use of Distributed Ledger Technology, as announced in the Budget of 2018-19.
Among other issues discussed were market developments and financial stability implications of the use of RegTech and SupTech by Financial Firms and Regulatory and Supervisory Authorities. The Council also discussed the implementation of the recommendation of the Sumit Bose Committee Report on measures, such as promoting appropriate disclosure regime for financial distribution costs.
A discussion was held on the activities undertaken by the FSDC sub-committee chaired by the RBI Governor and the action taken by the members on the decisions taken in the earlier meetings.