Digital lending platforms are seeking RBI’s help to relax strict rules on unsecured lending, particularly for short-term loans. NBFCs have stopped offering short-duration credit products, potentially pushing customers toward offline moneylenders. Fintechs have halved their loan disbursements compared to last year and are now offering minimum 6-month tenure loans instead of shorter durations to comply with concerns about high interest rates.
Leading fintech companies are now strictly monitoring how personal loans are being used, focusing on medical expenses, life events, and small business needs while moving away from consumer durables. They’re using account aggregators and AI tools to verify fund usage, following RBI’s push to ensure loans are used for productive purposes rather than consumption.
SEBI has mandated stockbrokers to create separate business units (SBUs) for trading government securities on the NDS-OM platform. This follows RBI’s recent decision to allow non-bank brokers access to NDS-OM to increase retail participation. The SBUs must be ring-fenced from other securities market activities, maintain separate accounts, and won’t be covered under SEBI’s SCORES complaint system or stock exchange investor protection mechanisms.