The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday announced the opening of a third cohort under the Regulatory Sandbox (RS) with MSME Lending as its theme. The window for submission of applications for the cohort shall be open until November 14.

“The MSME segment has emerged as the growth engine of Indian economy contributing significantly to the economic and social development of the country by fostering entrepreneurship and generating large employment opportunities through business innovation the RBI said in a statement.

A cohort on MSME Lending is expected to spur innovations that can fill the lending gap for MSMEs through the innovative use of technology and data analytics, it further added.
RBI has come up with Regulatory Sandbox to foster responsible innovation in financial services, promote efficiency and benefit consumers.

The RBI Sandbox is based on thematic cohorts. In the first cohort with retail payments as its theme, six entities have successfully exited the Sandbox. These entities have developed a range of products like feature phone-based offline payments using voice, innovative use of Near Field Communication (NFC) in payments, voice-based UPI payment solution and offline payment solution using SIM overlay smartcard.

In the second cohort on Cross Border Payments, eight entities have been selected for testing. The products include Block chain-based cross-border payment system, cross-border platform to facilitate the purchase of assets listed on foreign exchanges and aggregation platform of cross-border payment providers.