RBI awaiting govt notification for coming out with P2P lending norms

The Reserve Bank is waiting for a gazette notification from the government on getting the peer-to-peer lenders under its regulatory ambit before coming out with guidelines on the sector, a senior official said on Wednesday.

"Following up on the consultation paper we did last year, we are shortly going to come up with guidelines on peer to peer lending," RBI's executive director Sudarshan Sen said at an industry event here.

The consultation paper on p-2-p lending was released by RBI in April last year, but the final guidelines are yet to come.

Sen said a notification from the government is the missing part which is preventing the RBI from releasing the final guidelines.

"First, we need the government to notify p-2-p platforms as an entity to be regulated by RBI. That requires a gazette notification. Once that happens, we come out with regulation," he said.

Sen added that the legislative change for the same has already come in and it is only a gazette notification that is required.

A June 29 report quoting top finance ministry sources had said that RBI will come out with the final guidelines in 2-3 weeks.

"We have given our comments to the RBI. The guidelines should be out soon. The norms will be out before July-end," the official had said. He also said the finance ministry has recommended that these platforms be registered as non-banking financial institutions.