The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday launched several important initiatives, giving great relief to retail investors and others. Their aim is to facilitate participation in the financial system and simplify the application process for various regulatory approvals.
Under this, on the one hand, the central bank introduced a mobile app for the participation of retail investors in the government securities market. On the other hand, the ‘Pravah’ portal was launched for simple online application. Through the mobile app, retail investors can now buy and sell government securities using the mobile app on their smartphones. Apart from this, the Pravah portal has been launched for any person or entity to apply online in a simple way for various regulatory approvals. The
central bank said in a statement that this portal will facilitate various processes related to granting regulatory approvals by the Reserve Bank. Apart from this, RBI has taken the ‘Fintech Repository’ initiative. This third initiative, launched by Governor Shaktikanta Das, aims to store data of Indian financial technology (FinTech) companies to better understand the sector from a regulatory perspective and facilitate formulation of appropriate policy approaches.
What is flow?
The ‘Pravaha’ (Platform for Regulatory Application, Verification and Approval) portal is a secure and centralized web-based platform. It is a platform for any person or entity to obtain approval, license or regulatory approval in matters related to the Reserve Bank. Sharing the features of the portal in a statement, RBI said that 60 applications related to various regulatory and supervisory departments can be submitted online. The concerned unit can view the status of the application on the portal. Also, RBI can send a decision related to an application in a timely manner. It said that more application forms will be made available if needed.
What is the Retail Direct Mobile App?
Regarding the ‘Retail Direct’ mobile app related to the purchase and sale of government securities, the statement said that through this, retail investors can now buy and sell government securities using the mobile app on their smartphones. The mobile app can be downloaded from the ‘Play Store’ for Android users and the ‘App Store’ for iOS users. Currently, the ‘Retail Direct’ portal facilitates retail investors to open retail direct government securities accounts with the Reserve Bank of India. This facility has been provided under the Retail Direct Scheme. The portal was launched in November 2021. It allows retail investors to buy government securities in primary auctions as well as buy and sell them in the secondary market.
The Goal of the Fintech Repository
According to the statement, the objective of the FinTech Repository is to collect necessary information about financial technology units, their activities, technology use etc. with the aim of forming a regulatory approach and appropriate policy stance. Both financial technology companies that fall under the purview of regulation and remain outside it are encouraged to contribute to the repository.
Along with this, ‘MTech Repository’ has also been launched. This is a dedicated repository for adoption of emerging technologies (artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, etc.) by RBI purview entities (banks and NBFCs) only. FinTech and MTech repositories are secure web-based applications and are managed by Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH), a wholly-owned subsidiary of RBI.
