RBI Bars Indian Banks From Facilitating Services To Crypto Firm
India’s central bank said Thursday that the banks and financial institutions it directs will never again be permitted to work with cryptocurrency exchanges and other related administrations.
“It has been decided that, with immediate effect, entities regulated by RBI shall not deal with or provide services to any individual or business entities dealing with or settling [cryptocurrencies]. Regulated entities which already provide such services shall exit the relationship within a specified time,” the Reserve Bank of India said in its announcement.
According to the Indian business daily paper Financial Express, RBI Deputy Governor BP Kanungo told columnists on Thursday that the “specified time” would be three months.
The news recharged worries that India was moving to force a by and large restriction on cryptocurrency, however, a board formed a year ago to contemplate potential controls still can’t seem to discharge its discoveries or any proposition. As of late, authorities in India have openly expressed that the administration does not perceive bitcoin as a type of legitimate tender.
Not less than one cryptocurrency trade in India has made light of the centrality of the move. As indicated by an announcement distributed on Twitter, PocketBits contended that exchanges in the nation have to a great extent been cut off from managing an account received as of now.
“We can’t remark on the circumstances ahead yet there is no compelling reason to freeze, RBI has quite recently repeated what they have effectively executed, THERE IS NO BAN ON BITCOIN in India starting at yet, there is no official remain of the administration on this,” the trader said. “This is only the Central Bank of India standing firm against an innovation which they will actualize themselves as far as a Digital Rupee.”
The Bank has beforehand issued notices on cryptocurrencies, the first was distributed in 2013. It published another notice in December, advised buyers that it had not authorized any organizations to work with digital currencies and communicated particular concerns identified with ICOs.
In a similar statement on Thursday, the RBI said that it had assembled a working group to examine the issue of issuing its own cryptocurrency.
“Rapid changes in the landscape of the payments industry along with factors such as [the] emergence of private digital tokens and the rising costs of managing fiat paper/metallic money have led central banks around the world to explore the option of introducing fiat digital currencies,” the national bank clarified, including:
“While many central banks are still engaged in the debate, an inter-departmental group has been constituted by the Reserve Bank to study and provide guidance on the desirability and feasibility to introduce a central bank digital currency.”
