At the recent Global Fintech Festival in Mumbai, a quiet line in the delegate guidelines carried a loud meaning: no conversations on politics or crypto.
On paper, it looked administrative — the kind of housekeeping note meant to keep discussions on track. But in a country whose financial evolution is inseparable from political will, such a rule tells much about us, about our avoidance of tougher conversations.
For all the talk of innovation and disruption, fintech in India is a creature of the State. Its very architecture — from Aadhaar and UPI to data-sharing norms — flows from deliberate political and regulatory choices. To separate “fintech” from “politics” is to forget that technology does not merely process money; it encodes values. Every payment system is a reflection of what a nation chooses to privilege: control or openness, prudence or experimentation, inclusion or surveillance.
India’s fintech story has often been told as one of technological triumph. The deeper story, however, is about governance — about how a democratic state manages risk while encouraging innovation, and how its regulators interpret their mandate in an era of algorithmic finance. And we have done superbly well in these.
It is also worth recalling that India’s institutions are not known for timidity. The Reserve Bank of India has, time and again, taken decisive and sometimes unpopular stands — from regulating shadow banking and digital lending to introducing guardrails on consumer protection. The government, too, has acted with firmness, as seen in the overnight ban on online gaming platforms. Both have shown that they are unafraid to act when public interest is at stake.
When the RBI worries about crypto or stablecoins, it is not wrong to do so. But the worry must be spoken, not whispered. Publicly stated reasoning is what turns opinion into policy and policy into trust.
Why, then, the hesitation to articulate a clear position on crypto when concerns about financial stability or consumer harm could be explained transparently? To speak one’s mind is not to endorse; it is to clarify. In policymaking, clarity is a greater virtue than comfort.
Silence, by contrast, breeds speculation. If the official stance is neither endorsement nor rejection, entrepreneurs read it as uncertainty, investors as hesitation, and citizens as opacity.
Our public policy conversations have, for too long, preferred safety over clarity. We speak in metaphors of “wait and watch” and “calibrated approach”, as if policy were a hedge-fund bet.
But mature economies take stands — with caveats, certainly, but also with conviction. When the International Monetary Fund (IMF), BIS or European Central Bank draws red lines on crypto or stablecoins, it publishes rationale, invites comment, and allows data to shift its eventual stance. That is how confidence is built: through transparent reasoning, not rhetorical avoidance.
India’s demographic youth bulge makes that openness even more urgent. This generation does not seek ideological alignment; it seeks honesty. They are not afraid of hearing that something is banned, regulated, or delayed — they only wish to know why, and until when. To tell them that certain topics are off-limits is to infantilise the very audience that will inherit the consequences.
In a nation where more than half the population is under 30, the act of explaining policy is itself an instrument of governance. Young citizens, raised in the age of information, no longer accept opaque authority but expect reasoning. When the government or regulator articulates why it holds a position and when that position might evolve as data or evidence changes, it builds legitimacy rather than inviting scepticism.
Such openness demonstrates that policymaking is a living process — an evolving dialogue between evidence and intent. A nation that explains its “why” earns the right to be believed when it says “not yet”.
Crypto, like many technologies or magical-claims before it, is a mirror to policy temperament. It tests whether we can engage with uncertainty without yielding to fear. The regulator’s instinct to protect financial stability is sound. But refusing public conversation about it is unsound. A policy that cannot be defended in daylight eventually falters in the dark.
We are quick to celebrate innovation in rhetoric, but slower to own it in reasoning. Consultations and working groups are vital to a democratic and feedback-driven regulatory process — they reflect thoughtfulness, not hesitation. But when the consultation cycle becomes perpetual, shading delays, it begins to replace decision-making with deferral. Regulators may well have a view — as the Reserve Bank of India has repeatedly and responsibly voiced its concerns over crypto — but the ball now seems to rest in political circles. When that ball stays still for too long, policy loses both momentum and meaning.
India’s economic rise deserves a bolder narrative posture. A nation that seeks to shape the digital order of the twenty-first century must not fear conversation about its financial architecture.
The way forward is not reckless deregulation but responsible candour. Let the government and the RBI articulate their reasons openly, publish their evidence, and declare that positions will evolve when facts do. Such intellectual transparency is the hallmark of a confident democracy. It tells citizens that policy is not dogma, but dialogue.
India’s fintech sector has already shown that it can change how over a billion people transact. It is time our policy discourse showed that it can change how a billion people are spoken to. For in the long run, it is not the technology that defines a financial system’s character, but the courage with which its policymakers speak.
The writer is a corporate advisor and author of Family and Dhanda. The opinion is personal views, and not attributable to any organisation that the author is associated with
