The Indian Express | Aadhaar, PAN, Paytm, KYC — how fintech regulation is hurting the consumer

In the evolving landscape of fintech or financial technology, India stands at the crossroads of innovation and regulation. What began as a quest for stability and oversight has devolved into a dystopian odyssey, where good intentions pave the road to chaos, and unintended consequences lurk around every corner.

Our story today commences with a modest trigger — the cautious instructions of the RBI to Kotak Bank, halting new digital customer onboarding and suspending credit card issuances. The regulatory zeal, ostensibly aimed at preempting potential outages, lacks a tangible basis for outage events. It’s reminiscent of the regulatory crackdowns of the past, where rigid checks were imposed without a clear understanding of the underlying issues, like the one on HDFC a few years ago or on Paytm recently. This knee-jerk reaction to largely hypothetical scenarios reflects a systemic failure to distinguish between proactive risk management and reactive overreach.

Read the full article here.

Firstpost | Embracing AI: A strategic shift towards software-centric innovation in India

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, driven by a coalition of tech giants and developers rallying behind an OpenAI-led initiative to build software that facilitates switching between different AI chips. As Nvidia’s dominance in AI hardware faces challenges due to supply shortages and high costs, this initiative aims to democratise AI development by reducing dependence on Nvidia’s proprietary software platform, Cuda. This article contends that India, with its robust software development industry, is uniquely positioned to contribute to this transformative shift, and this strategy plays well to India’s strengths and could assist India from a geopolitical perspective too. Read the full article here.

The Quint | Wealth Tax: The Rich Are Ready To Shell Out. Can the Government Enable Means?

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently addressed the concept of "Robinhood Economics", emphasising the importance of wealth creation over redistribution. Her remarks come amidst a broader debate sparked during the Indian election campaign regarding the potential implementation of wealth and inheritance taxes to address economic inequality. In an era marked by widening economic disparities and mounting calls for social justice, the debate over wealth tax and inheritance tax has ignited fervent discourse on the role of taxation in fostering economic equity and bolstering social security. Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | Multi-Contributor Social Security: Time to reimagine social security contributions

It was recently in the news that the Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) is considering extending its coverage to unorganised and gig sector workers. On July 24, 2023, Rajasthan became the first Indian state to pass a legislation aimed at providing social security benefits to gig workers. These are part of various attempts that governments have been making to extend social security beyond just the formal sector. Social security in India faces two main problems – coverage and financing. It covers mainly the organised sector, leaving out gig workers, unorganised sector workers, etc. Even within the organised sector, around 53 percent do not have any social security benefits, as per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) report. In fact, more than 90 percent of India’s workforce is engaged in informal employment. Even the National Pension System (NPS), theoretically open to all, has very poor coverage – only around 6.2 crore subscribers as of March 2023. Read the full article here.