India likely to defer introduction of crypto Bill in Parliament

NEW DELHI • India's much-awaited cryptocurrency Bill is unlikely to be presented in the ongoing session of Parliament as the government has yet to finalise details of the legislation, according to sources.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration wants wider consultations on the matter before finalising the rules to govern digital currencies and there is not enough time as the current session ends on Thursday, said the sources who asked not to be identified.

Also, the Cabinet has not approved the proposed legislation.

A spokesman for the Finance Ministry could not be immediately reached for a comment.

The schedule for the last week of the Parliament session has dropped the cryptocurrency Bill.

However, the government can still bring in the legislation through an ordinance in periods when Parliament is not in session.

The Bill proposes to help the central bank create an official digital currency, according to the Parliament's website.

According to the text, the legislation seeks to "prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India, however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses".

India, with nearly 1.4 billion people, is one of the world's fastest-growing markets for cryptocurrency trading, but the country has had a hot-and-cold relationship with virtual coins.

The central bank had effectively banned crypto transactions in 2018, but the Supreme Court struck down the restriction last year.

Calls for stricter rules have grown since then amid concerns that an unregulated environment could draw more domestic household savings towards the volatile assets.

The crypto market in India has grown 641 per cent this year through June, according to an October report from Chainalysis, a crypto-analysis firm.

The Bill has been reworked to make it more recent, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said earlier.

BLOOMBERG