“The council took cognizance of the emerging trends from domestic and global macro-financial situation and stressed upon the need to be vigilant especially in view of the ongoing geopolitical uncertainties, AI boom and steep rise in global bond yields. The council recognised the need for proactive efforts to mitigate potential risks to financial stability while adopting adequate safeguards for financial system’s resilience. The members decided to strengthen the inter-regulatory coordination for wider development of the financial sector,” a finance ministry statement said.
At its 30th meeting in New Delhi, the council discussed measures to promote financial technology innovation, including exploring the prospects of tokenisation of financial assets and other real-world assets.
The finance minister also urged the council to meet more frequently-- with a predefined schedule--citing rising geopolitical headwinds and global uncertainty.
The FSDC also discussed strategies to implement pending decisions and Budget announcements aimed at strengthening the domestic investment ecosystem, improving resource flows to investment, including through GIFT International Financial Services Centre (GIFT-IFSC), and reducing the cost of financial intermediation.
Other priorities included simplifying and digitising know-your-customer (KYC) processes and enabling digital onboarding for non-resident Indians (NRIs) and foreign portfolio investors (FPIs).
The council also discussed reforms to scale up India’s digital public infrastructure, including the Account Aggregator framework and the Unified Lending Interface (ULI), with a specific focus on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
It also discussed improving the responsiveness of financial sector regulations and rationalising credit guarantee schemes.
The council reviewed the cyber resilience of the Indian financial sector and took note of the Financial Sector Cyber Security Strategy, formulated by an inter-ministerial group comprising financial sector regulators and cybersecurity agencies in coordination with the Department of Economic Affairs, Department of Financial Services and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
The strategy is expected to strengthen the overall resilience of the financial sector. Discussions also covered the protection of critical information infrastructure and improving cybersecurity preparedness among regional rural banks.
Sitharaman also urged regulators and other stakeholders to expedite the refund of unclaimed financial assets to their rightful owners. These include bank deposits, dividends, shares, post office accounts, insurance proceeds, and pension funds.
The council took note of the efforts undertaken by stakeholders under the government’s ‘Your Money, Your Right’ campaign to return unclaimed financial assets through district-level initiatives. It asked ministries and regulators to intensify efforts to ensure timely refunds.
The FSDC reviewed the activities of its sub-committee, chaired by Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra, and the action taken on pending decisions from previous meetings.
The meeting was attended by Malhotra, Economic Affairs Secretary Anuradha Thakur, Financial Services Secretary Sanjay Lohiya, Revenue Secretary Arvind Shrivastava, Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran and the heads of financial sector regulators, among others.
 "Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired the 30th FSDC meet in New Delhi on Friday photo: pti")