At the recent Global FinTech Festival in Mumbai, a quiet sentence in the participant guidelines carried a lot of weight. The idea was to ban conversations about politics and cryptocurrencies.
On paper, it was administrative, like an administrative memo to keep the discussion on track. But in a country where financial evolution is inseparable from political will, such rules say a lot about our avoidance of tougher conversations.
Despite all the talk of innovation and disruption, Indian fintech is a creature of the nation. From Aadhaar and UPI to data sharing norms, the architecture itself is born of deliberate political and regulatory choices. To separate “fintech” from “politics” is to forget that technology does more than just process money. Encode the value. Every payment system reflects what a state chooses to privilege: controlled or open, cautious or experimental, inclusive or monitored.
The story of Indian fintech is often told as one of technological triumph. But the deeper story is about governance, how democracies manage risk while fostering innovation, and how regulators interpret their mandate in the age of algorithmic finance. And we succeeded admirably in these respects.
It is also worth remembering that Indian institutions are not known for being timid. The Reserve Bank of India has repeatedly taken firm and sometimes unpopular positions on everything from regulating shadow banking and digital lending to putting in place consumer protection guardrails. The government also took a firm stance, as seen in the overnight ban on online gaming platforms. Both have shown that they are not afraid to act when the public interest is at risk.
If the RBI is concerned about cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, it is not wrong to do so. But those concerns must be spoken, not whispered. Publicly stated reasoning is what turns opinion into policy and policy into trust.
So why are we hesitant to take a clear position on cryptocurrencies, despite our clearly articulated concerns about financial stability and harm to consumers? Speaking your mind is not an endorsement. That’s to clarify. In policy making, clarity is a virtue over reassurance.
Silence, by contrast, breeds speculation. If the official stance is neither support nor rejection, entrepreneurs perceive it as uncertainty, investors as hesitation, and the public as uncertainty.
For too long, our public policy discussions have prioritized safety over clarity. We talk about “wait-and-see” and “calibrated approaches” metaphors, as if policy were a hedge fund bet.
However, a mature economy stands up to the challenge with confidence, albeit with some caveats. When the International Monetary Fund (IMF), BIS, or European Central Bank draw a red line on cryptocurrencies or stablecoins, they make their rationale public, invite comment, and allow data to change their final stance. This is how you build confidence. Not through rhetorical evasion, but through transparent reasoning.
India’s demographic boom in youth makes that openness even more urgent. This generation does not seek ideological conformity. It demands honesty. They are not afraid to hear that something is prohibited, regulated or postponed. All they want to know is why and for how long. Telling people that certain topics are off-limits infantilizes the very audience that will inherit the consequences.
In a country where more than half the population is under 30, the very act of explaining policy is a means of governance. Young people who grew up in the information age no longer accept opaque authority and expect reasoning. When governments and regulators are clear about why they take the position they do and when that position will evolve in response to changing data and evidence, it builds legitimacy rather than inviting skepticism.
This openness shows that policy-making is a living process, an evolving dialogue between evidence and intent. A nation that explains “why” earns the right to be believed when it says “not yet.”
Cryptography, like many technological and magical claims before it, is a reflection of policy temperament. It tests whether we can cope with uncertainty without succumbing to fear. Regulators’ instinct to protect financial stability is sound. But refusing to have a public conversation about it is unhealthy. Policies that cannot be defended in the light of day will eventually sway in the darkness.
We are quick to celebrate innovations in rhetoric, but slow to internalize innovations in reasoning. Consultations and working groups are essential to a democratic, feedback-driven regulatory process and reflect thoughtfulness rather than hesitation. But when consultation cycles become permanent, shading begins to be delayed and decision-making is replaced by deferral. Regulators may also have a view, as the Reserve Bank of India has repeatedly and responsibly expressed concerns about cryptocurrencies, but the ball now appears to be in the political arena. If that ball sits still for too long, policy loses momentum and meaning.
India’s economic rise needs to be talked about in a bolder manner. Countries seeking to shape the 21st century digital order should not be afraid to have conversations about their financial architecture.
The way forward is responsible frankness, not reckless deregulation. Let governments and central banks openly state their reasons, publish evidence, and declare that their position will change when the facts change. Such intellectual transparency is a hallmark of a confident democracy. It conveys to the people that policy is not dogma but dialogue.
India’s fintech sector has already shown that it can change the way over 1 billion people transact. It’s time to show that our policy debates can change the way we speak to a billion people. Because in the long run, it will not be technology that will define the character of the financial system, but the courage with which policymakers speak.
The author is a corporate advisor and author of Family and Dhanda. This opinion is personal and should not be attributed to any organization with which the author is associated.
