Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Friday backed the proposed cryptocurrency and data privacy bills, saying that India is implementing the most progressive policies and regulations.
Ambani, who has been a devotee of Indians owning and controlling their own data and that the nation writes strict rules on how digital information is stored and shared, said nations have the right to build and protect a strategic digital infrastructure.
Stating that data is the "new oil," he said that the right to privacy of all citizens must be safeguarded.
"India is implementing the most progressive policies and regulations," he told the Infinity Forum, organized by the International Financial Services Centers Authority (IFSCA).
The country, he said, already has a great digital identity framework, through Aadhaar, digital bank accounts and digital payments.
โWe are about to present the data privacy bill and the cryptocurrency bill. I think we are on the right track, โhe said.
The comments came as the government seeks to introduce a new bill in Parliament to treat cryptocurrencies as a financial asset while protecting small investors. Legislation may stipulate a minimum amount for investments in digital currencies while prohibiting their use as legal tender.
The legislative agenda for the current winter session of Parliament that began on November 29 lists the presentation of a bill that seeks to ban all private cryptocurrencies, except "certain exceptions to promote the underlying cryptocurrency technology and its uses." While the government is considering taxing the profits of cryptocurrencies, the Reserve Bank of India wants a complete ban on digital currencies, as it believes this could affect the macroeconomic and financial stability of the nation.
โThe digital and data infrastructure is of strategic importance to India and all other nations in the world. Every country has the right to build and protect this strategic digital infrastructure, โhe said, adding that a uniform global standard was needed so that cross-border transactions, collaborations and partnerships are not hampered.
Stating that the right to privacy of all citizens must be safeguarded, he said that the right policies and the right regulatory framework must balance this with the nation's need to protect data and digital infrastructure.
Ambani, President and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Ltd, said he was a big believer in blockchain technology.
"I believe in blockchain technology and this is different from cryptocurrency," he said, adding: "Blockchain is very important for an equitable and trust-based society." While the bill to regulate cryptocurrencies is in the works, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das is among those who feel that the blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies could exist on its own, even without the currency.
"By using blockchain, we can bring unprecedented security, trust, automation and efficiency to almost any type of transaction," Ambani said. "It can be used to modernize our supply chains that form the lifeblood of our economies." India is now on the way to transform into a leading digital society, having implemented the digital infrastructure and regulatory framework.
"The data is indeed the 'new oil.' But new oil is fundamentally different from traditional oil. Traditional oil was extracted only in select places, thus creating wealth for only a few countries. On the contrary, the new oil, that is, data, can be generated and consumed everywhere and by everyone. It has the potential to create value equitably, in all sectors, in all geographies, in all economic classes, โhe said.
His comments come in the context of a debate on how India should balance user protections with supporting its digital economy in the world's fastest growing major internet market. Foreign companies and hundreds of local startups have flourished amid a dearth of regulation.
Ambani's Jio has supercharged internet adoption, helping to drive down data prices since its launch in 2016, and his group has now built an online to offline retail platform that is based on Amazon and Walmart. Flipkart, they are betting big on the Indian ecommerce market.
The country, he said, is in the midst of a transition from 2G to 4G. โWe are in the process of creating an equally affordable device ecosystem to enable greater adoption, supported by faster deployment of fiber optic, cloud and data center infrastructure.
โThe next step will be the connectivity of machines, devices and vehicles, which is the Internet of things. With the launch of 5G next year in India, we are on track to have one of the most advanced digital infrastructures in the world. โAmbani said India is on its way to transform into a leading Digital Society, having implemented the digital infrastructure and framework regulatory.
"Finance is at the center of it all, and I think we are in very early stages of sporadic digitization, and with various new age technologies emerging, the opportunity is to adopt a decentralized finance model," he said.
There will be centralized government and central bank policies, but there will be a path to decentralized technological solutions where financing will be enabled and available to all, Ambani said.
Real-time technologies will help settle trades, not in days or hours, but in real time. Smart contracts will become a reality.
โThe convergence of technologies in real time, distributed ledger, blockchain, smart tokens, etc. with the physical infrastructure that uses IoT it will redefine the decentralized financing sector in a way we never imagined โ, he added.
