Recently, Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister of India, and Janet L. Yellen, United States Treasury Secretary came together for the ninth meeting under the India-U.S. Economic and Financial Partnership, a framework to strengthen the economic bonds between our two nations and build a foundation for greater cooperation and economic growth.
The meeting was held in New Delhi and marked the attendance of various officials including the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Shaktikanta Das, and the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Jerome Powell. The meeting witnessed both the country’s officials discuss various issues including digital assets.
As per the joint statement released by the officials, the U.S.-India partnership is expecting to achieve sustainable engagement through the long-term U.S-India Financial Regulatory Dialogue. The regulatory dialogue is a platform for the discussion of various issues in the financial sector and priority areas, one of them being digital assets.
After the meeting, Yellen also participated in a discussion on India-U.S. Business and Economic Opportunities along with business dignitaries and economics specialists from both countries. In the discussion session, Yellen highlighted the need for global cooperation while dealing with cryptocurrencies, something which the Indian financial minister also agrees with.
Further, Yellen said that in the case of cryptocurrencies, there are several areas where they have inadequate market consumers and issues involving the protection of investors to be dealt with. Such topics were also discussed during the meeting as it essentially calls for international cooperation alongside public authorities, the private sector, and public stakeholders. The collaborative efforts would also help in establishing high global regulatory standards.
The discussion also witnessed the treasury secretary emphasizing the need of reducing the cost of cross-border payments. Yellen said that in pursuit of achieving it, the organization is working closely with global entities like the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the multilateral development banks, the UN’s internal monetary fund (IMF), and the bilateral exchanges to efficiently analyze the risks and benefits from cryptocurrencies.
Yellen also highlighted the efforts of the U.S. in the field and called it to be a priority under Biden’s administration. She said that a lot of progress has been made in issues of illegal and illicit use of cryptocurrencies, however, a lot still needs to be done. Earlier this month, India and FATF’s meeting also discussed the prevention of threatening use of crypto in financing terrorism as reported by Todayq.
In September, Sitharaman also urged the IMF to lead the crypto regulation and in October, she expressed her desire to seek help from G20 to establish the framework for digital assets.