The world must take a ‘collective action’ approach to regulations – India’s Finance Minister

Nirmala Sitharaman hopes that finance ministers and central bank governors will be able to agree on crypto regulations in the G-20 meeting in Bengaluru later this month.

India’s Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, suggested that regulation “cannot be done” by a single country, it requires an international effort, in a recent television interview.

Speaking to Rahul Joshi on CNBC-TV18 in India on Feb. 3, Sitharaman noted that while the central bank is the “authority for issuing cryptocurrency,” the rest of the digital assets created outside are “using very useful financial technologies.”

Sitharaman said that India is looking at a “global” standard operating procedure (SOP) to be “agreed upon” for regulating crypto assets, ahead of India hosting the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Bengaluru later this month.

She suggested that for crypto regulations to be effective it requires global consensus. She noted:

“Regulation cannot be done by any one country singularly, it has to be a collective action because technology doesn’t group any borders.”

Related: India cooperates with IMF on crypto consultation paper

This comes after the news that Sitharaman didn’t mention any changes to income tax laws in relation to crypto, central bank digital currency or blockchain technology in the union budget on Feb. 1.

There have been numerous developments on crypto regulations by various countries within the G20 in recent times.

Most recently, the Australian government released a token mapping consultation paper on Feb. 3, ahead of their plans to release a licensing and custody framework in mid-2023.

The Bank of France’s governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau stated that France shouldn’t wait on EU crypto laws, and instead take action on licensing “as soon as possible,” during a speech in Paris on Jan. 5

Brazil and Argentina are having their own discussions about creating a common digital currency together, in an effort to reduce dependance on the U.S. dollar.

Meanwhile, Huang Yiping, a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), believes that the Chinese government should reconsider its ban on cryptocurrency trading, suggesting it may not be sustainable in the long run.