RBI regulates outsourcing of IT Services by financial entities
-Anirudh Grover, Executive | finserv@vinodkothari.com
1. Introduction
With the penetration of the internet in India, newer and more efficient technologies are being built and these dynamic technologies are being leveraged by various sectors of the economy, and the financial sector is one of them. Financial institutions have extensively been outsourcing their IT services requirements to third parties in order to get easier access to newer technologies. In this process of availing the services of a third party, financial institutions expose themselves to significant financial, operational, and reputational risk as the Reserve Bank of India has pointed out.
Accordingly, the RBI in the year 2022 had in its Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies proposed to issue draft directions on outsourcing of IT services since the existing Directions on Managing Risks and Code in Outsourcing of Financial Services (‘Guidelines on Outsourcing of Financial Services’) as provided for in the Master Direction- Non Banking Financial Company- Systemically Important Non Deposit taking Company and Deposit taking Company (Reserve Bank) Directions, 2016 (Updated as on December 29, 2022) (‘SI Directions’) specifically excluded IT services from its ambit. Following which on June 23, 2022 the RBI issued Draft Master Direction on Outsourcing of IT Services (‘Draft IT Outsourcing Directions’) for public comments. We had briefly in our previous write up discussed the introduction of the Draft IT Outsourcing Directions.
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