In order to regulate the nascent and unregulated peer-to-peer (P2P) lending business, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has came up with a Consultation Paper on P2P Lending, for seeking comments/views from all interested parties and general public. P2P lending is a form of crowd-funding which can be defined as the use of an online platform that matches lenders with borrowers in order to provide unsecured loans. The borrower can either be an individual or a business requiring a loan. The lender can also be a natural or a legal person. Fee is paid to the platform by both the lender as well as the borrower.
The Consultation paper outlines the pros and cons of regulating the sector and proposes a suitable framework for regulating this activity, which includes minimum capital, permitted activity, governance requirements, fair practices code for customer dealing and data security. Online P2P lending companies work as marketplaces that bring individual borrowers and lenders together for loan transactions without the intervention of traditional financial institutions such as banks and NBFCs.
The central bank has proposed registering P2P lending platforms as non-banking financial companies (NBFCs). RBI said it would be “prudent” to regulate the business because of “the impact it can have on traditional banking channels” and NBFCs and its “potential to disrupt the financial sector and throw up surprises”.
There are many variants of Peer to Peer lending platforms in terms of the nature and extent of services provided by them and global regulatory practices also vary. At present, there is no clear regulatory framework in India governing the functioning of the Peer to Peer lending platforms. RBI has said that based on the feedback of the consultation paper the contours of regulating Peer to Peer Lending will be decided in consultation with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
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