AMN / WEB DESK
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today chaired the 27th Financial Stability and Development Council, FSDC meeting in New Delhi. The meeting was held in the presence of Ministers of State for Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary and Dr Bhagwat Karad. RBI Governor, Finance Secretary, Chief Economic Advisor, and other senior officials were also present at the meeting.
During the meeting of the Council, it was discussed that the policy and legislative reform measures required to further develop the financial sector may be formulated and implemented expeditiously to not only increase the financial access of the people but also increase their overall economic well-being.
Ms Sitharaman advised that regulators should maintain a constant vigil as ensuring ‘financial sector stability is a shared responsibility’ of the regulators. Regulators must take appropriate and timely action to mitigate any vulnerability and strengthen financial stability.
She said regulators should adopt a focused approach to reduce the compliance burden further and ensure a streamlined and efficient regulatory environment. The progress achieved in this regard shall be reviewed by the Finance Minister with each regulator in June.
In the meeting it was decided regulators should conduct a special drive to facilitate settling unclaimed deposits and claims in the financial sector across all segments, such as bank deposits, shares, mutual funds, and insurance. This follows the announcement by Sitharaman in the last Union Budget that such steps would be taken.
“As for unclaimed shares and dividends, a drive should be undertaken, especially in cases where the data of the nominees is available. Where the nominee details are not there, a process has to be put in place to identify them,” Seth said.
An official statement by the finance ministry on the meeting said the regulators needed to be proactive and ensure cyber-security preparedness of information technology systems to reduce the risk of cyber-attacks, protect sensitive financial data, and maintain overall systems integrity.
A focused approach should be adopted by the regulators to implement the announcements made in the Budget 2023-24, and for that timelines were also decided, the ministry said.