Govt backs disclosures for credit card, e-transactions
New Delhi, Sep 11, 2024
Government is backing greater transparency for credit card and other digital payment methods, while seeking to balance the interests of the payment and fintech industry, a senior official said on Tuesday. As part of its efforts to crack down on terror finance and money laundering, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has proposed stricter norms for card and online transactions, which may require more disclosures.
Industry players, including some of the global giants in the payments business, have, however, cited difficulties, including higher cost of compliance and changes in software and protocol.
"India supports greater disclosures, but it should not compromise the speed of transactions and ease of doing business," a senior official said. The idea is to have more data related to the sender and recipient of funds and under the travel rule so that enforcement agencies can move in swiftly.
The policy development group (PDG) of the FATF is deliberating on whether the required information is clearly available to law enforcement agencies or if the information gets masked in any form. Masking of information leads to delay in information sharing by financial institutions involved in cross-border transactions with law enforcement agencies.
While information is available for domestic transfers, data availability is often seen as a problem for cross-border transactions, sources indicated.
The FATF group is looking at what is the "identifiable information" and what all data relating to fund transfers should be made available by countries.
Once it is approved by global financial crime watchdog FATF, all member countries would be implementing such disclosure norms over two-three years, a source said.
Over the years, FATF has tightened norms around multiple actors, including virtual digital assets players, gems and jewellery and real estate, where there is scope for evasion and money laundering.
Greater access to data is seen to be critical to track and act against those violating the system. Given the threat of terror financing impacting India, govt has always sought to tighten the rules to check possible misuse. According to the latest mutual evaluation report, India was put in the "regular follow-up category", one among four G20 nations. The report is due to be made public on Sept 19.
[The Times of India]
