P2P lending: Barking up the wrong tree?

Around 15 P2P platforms went live, but one-third of them have shut up shop. Analysts say four of them have more than 90 per cent of the market share

In July last year, I wrote in this column: “Before it is too late, the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) should come down on the practice of renting out the P2P (peer-to-peer) licence, playing the role of deposit-taking NBFCs (non-banking financial companies), offering daily interest without repayment from the borrowers and creating asset-liability mismatches for some of them.”
 

The RBI, after conducting a “scrutiny” of “select NBFC-P2P companies” between June and September 2023, found “multiple violations” of norms laid down by the regulator in October 2017 when the licensing norms to usher in this set of companies on the Indian