RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra has urged fintech firms to treat customer data as a fiduciary responsibility rather than simply as a business asset to be monetised.
The argument is rooted in consent and purpose limitation: financial data should be used for clearly specified purposes and with meaningful user approval. Malhotra also warned against business models that scale by exploiting regulatory gaps.
The broader issue is trust. India's digital public infrastructure has enabled rapid financial innovation, but scale creates systemic consequences. As fintech firms become more important to payments, credit and savings, governance failures can affect not only individual users but financial stability and confidence.