India for SOPs to regulate cryptocurrency: FM Nirmala Sitharaman

India is aiming at developing standard operating procedures (SOPs) for cryptocurrency during its G20 presidency next year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, underlining that all countries want the technology to survive but not be misutilised.

“That (crypto) will also be part of India’s thing (agenda during G20 presidency),” Sitharaman told a group of reporters on Saturday before concluding her trip to Washington DC to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

India will assume the Presidency of the G20 for one year from December 1, 2022, to November 30, 2023, where India is expected to host over 200 G20 meetings across the country.

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Sitharaman has been making a strong case for global regulation of cryptocurrencies to tackle the risks of money laundering and terror funding.

She noted that institutions associated with the G20 or the World Bank or others are doing their assessment and studies of matters related to cryptocurrencies or crypto assets.

We would definitely want to collate all this and do a bit of study and then bring it on to the table of the G20 so that members can discuss it, and hopefully arrive at a framework or SOP so that globally, countries can have a technology-driven regulatory framework,” she said.

The G20 is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union, which works to address major issues related to the global economy, including international financial stability, climate change mitigation, and sustainable development.

Sitharaman underlined that no single country can effectively handle or regulate crypto in any form.

World Bank

Meanwhile, World Bank President David Malpass has offered to work with India to take its successful digitisation efforts to other countries so that they can also benefit from it, the finance minister said.

Nirmala Sitharaman added that there was a request extended to India to showcase how Indian people have accepted the deepening digital applications.

Referring to her meetings on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, she said, “There’s certainly a lot of appreciation. In fact, with a sense of amazement that India could do it in such a short period, it’s digital applications, which have been successful, how people have adapted to it.