The recent move by Equitas Small Finance Bank to tap into the user base of Google Pay for garnering deposits has thrown a curveball to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which is closely watching the deal to gauge its implication on the banking landscape.
The RBI has always favoured technological innovation in banking but has maintained that regulation should remain a step ahead of innovation. Predictably, it is wary of ‘Big Tech’ firms, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. In the half-yearly Financial Stability Report (FSR), released on July 1, the regulator even listed the growing presence of