BENGALURU, Feb 25 (Reuters) - A push by India's Group of 20 (G20) chairman to regulate cryptocurrencies won support from both the International Monetary Fund and the United States on Saturday as the bloc's finance chiefs wrapped up two days of conversations.
India has said it wants a collective global effort to tackle the problems posed by cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, and the finance ministry said it had conducted a seminar for G20 member states to discuss how to reach a common framework.
Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Bangalore, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said it was "critical" to put in place a strong regulatory framework, but added that the US had not suggested any outright ban. .
โWe have not suggested a complete ban on crypto activities, but it is critical to establish a strong regulatory framework,โ Yellen said. "We are working with other governments."
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Earlier, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters after co-chairing a meeting with India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that crypto ban should be an option.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has debated drafting a law to regulate or even ban cryptocurrencies for several years, but has not made a final decision. The Reserve Bank of India has said that cryptocurrencies should be banned as they are similar to a Ponzi scheme.
On Thursday, the IMF presented a nine-point action plan on how countries should treat crypto assets, with bullet number one being a plea not to grant legal tender status to cryptocurrencies.
Such efforts have become a priority for authorities, the fund said, following the collapse of a number of crypto exchanges and assets in recent years, adding that doing nothing now was "unsustainable."
Reporting by Aftab Ahmed, Sarita Chaganti Singh, Shivangi Acharya, and Dave Lawder; Written by Miral Fahmy; Edited by Krishna N. Das
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