Finance Ministry Welcomes RBI Move On P2P Lending

The finance ministry today welcomed the central bank's move to treat peer-to-peer, also known as P2P, lending platforms as non banking financial companies, saying it would improve financing for smaller firms.

The ministry also said it has taken note of the decision to keep interest rates unchanged and revise the growth forecast for this financial year.

“We have noted that this decision has been made by the MPC (monetary policy committee) in light of the underlying analysis which implies – a downward revision of the real GVA (gross value added) growth forecast for 2017-18 from 7.3 percent to 6.7 percent, which leads to a widening of the output gap,” it said in a statement.

It went on to say, "A marginally upward revision of the CPI (consumer price index) inflation forecast for the second half of the year meaning an average inflation for the year 2017-18 as a whole of less than 4 percent."

The ministry said that increasing retail participation in government securities via aggregation of bids by stock exchanges and other measures will deepen debt market.