Blog

This post explores the recent flurry of acquisitions in the Indian fintech industry. It cites examples of major fintech acquisitions and explains the legal and economic rationale behind them. Investments in the financial services space are picking up pace. Cred, a company known for enabling credit card payments (and quirky ads) entered the prepaid payment instruments (PPI) business (last year) through anRead more

This post analyses the impact of the RBI Working Group’s Report on Digital Lending Apps. It covers key recommendations made by the Working Group relating to credit-risk sharing, data privacy and security, artificial intelligence and buy-now-pay-later products. Regulation of digital lending in India now seems imminent. The RBI has been questioning buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) providers aboutRead more

This post explains the legal grey areas in offering credit through UPI. It provides a snapshot of regulatory action by NPCI and highlights implementation issues which must be resolved to enable this use-case. Moving money through UPI is like taking an Uber between two deposit accounts. UPI picks money (already lying-in deposit accounts) and movesRead more

This post provides an overview of major Aadhaar KYC related developments in the last year. It covers expansion of Aadhaar e-KYC access to non-banks and the framework for offline Aadhaar verification. Know-thy-customer is the first commandment of the financial services industry. And Aadhaar-based KYC is one of the most convenient and cost effective ways to execute this commandment.Read more

This article explores the concepts of crowdfunding, tokenisation and REITs, focussing on their distinctive attributes and major advantages/disadvantages. Introduction Conventional fundraising and governance has undergone a sea change over the past many decades. Starting from 1960s, REITs gained prominence as the vehicle to provide access to an otherwise illiquid market – real estate. With time,Read more

This blog post examines the evolution of the AA Framework, and its role in the India Stack ecosystem. Our earlier blog was a primer to the NBFC account aggregator framework (“AA Framework”). In this one we take a closer look at the evolution of the AA Framework. And its role in the India Stack ecosystem.Read more

E-wallets may have been critical for India’s digital payments revolution but have since seen set-backs in the form of regulatory changes and competition from UPI. In this blog we take a closer look at the value proposition of e-wallets. 1. Introduction  E-wallets[1] a rare breed of financial product where the RBI has permitted non-banking entities to accept ‘deposits’-Read more

This piece explores the impact of India’s upcoming data protection law on payments businesses, with a focus on cross-selling and physical location of data storage. With India’s upcoming data protection on the horizon, businesses must take a close look at their existing data use practices. The Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 (PDPB) calls for structural, organisationalRead more

This article summarizes the various issues discussed in our webinar on digital payments during COVID-19 with Mr. Arpit Ratan, Co-founder of Signzy. The webinar is available on YouTube. ———————————————— Introduction: On 01 May 2020, Aparajita Srivastava and Arpit Gupta from Ikigai Law held a webinar on ‘Digital payments: Threats and opportunities during the pandemic’. Mr.Read more

Under stress due to cash-flow disruptions caused by the pandemic prompted lockdown, digital lenders are having to adapt their credit models to changing dynamics. Yet, in adversity emerges opportunity- due to social distancing becoming the ‘new normal’, digitized and contactless lending lifecycles will be vital to plugging demand in a credit-starved economy. Uday Somayajula, Co-founder,Read more