The chairman of State Bank of India, Rajnish Kumar has reportedly spoken in the favor of crypto regulation in India. The remark was made amidst the Indian government’s bill to ban all cryptocurrencies except the state-issued ones.
State Bank of India, a Fortune 500 company, and a government-owned corporation is one of the largest banks in India.
‘Regulated Crypto Better Than An Unregulated One’
In an interview with PTI on Thursday, Kumar was asked about cryptocurrency. He replied, “the way the world is moving towards digitization, at some stage, a regulated cryptocurrency would be a better bet than an unregulated one,” while adding:
Let’s see. Because there’s a dark side of the internet also. There can be misuse of digital currencies. That is why regulation is [a] must.
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Rajnish Kumar, Chairman of State Bank of India
The chairman added that efforts are being made to bring technologies like blockchain into the functioning of banks, the news outlet noted.
The comment was made during the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The finance minister of India too talked briefly on cryptocurrencies in regard to Facebook’s Libra digital currency project.
As for the Indian economy and the banking sector, the SBI chairman said “Growth can come back,” citing a number of reforms that have been implemented in the past three years. “And as a result, we are in a transition period. A lot of cleanups has happened in the corporate sector,” the chairman told PTI.
Kumar explained that the biggest challenge in the Indian banking sector revolves around the functioning of the public sector banks. He opined, “recapitalization has happened in a big way but sectoral issues need to be addressed like the power, road and telecom sectors,” adding that “These sectoral issues impact the working of the banks, particularly in the asset quality front.”
India On Crypto Regulations
The government of India is currently at a consideration regarding cryptocurrency policies in the country.
The Government of India is still deliberating on a draft bill submitted by an interministerial committee (IMC) in February. The bill seeks to ban all cryptocurrencies except state-issued ones, was made public on July 23. However, the Indian crypto community believes that the bill is flawed and has been campaigning to convince lawmakers to reexamine the IMC recommendations.
On October 15 the Supreme Court of India was scheduled to resume hearing the arguments against the banking restrictions by the RBI. However, it got postponed to 19th November. Only one Indian lawmaker favors on the crypto community.
*This news has been sourced from a wire agency feed with additional feeds from cryptonewspoint.com