RBI publishes updated ‘Enabling Framework for Regulatory Sandbox’

Reserve Bank of India has placed on its website the updated ‘Enabling Framework for Regulatory Sandbox’. The framework has been revised based on the experience gained over the last four and half years in running four cohorts and feedback received from FinTechs, banking partners and other stakeholders.

Among others, the timelines of the various stages of the Regulatory Sandbox process have been revised from seven months to nine months. The updated framework also requires sandbox entities to ensure compliance with provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.

The target applicants for entry to the RS, are FinTech companies including start-ups, banks, financial institutions, any other company, Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) and partnership firms, partnering with or providing support to financial services businesses, subject to the sandbox criteria laid down in these guidelines.

The focus of the RS will be to encourage innovations intended for use in the Indian market in areas where:

1. there is absence of governing regulations;
2. there is a need to temporarily ease regulations for enabling the proposed innovation;
3. the proposed innovation shows promise of easing/effecting delivery of financial services in a significant way.