Bitcoins won’t be promoted

New Delhi: While the government is pushing digital transactions, it has no intention to promote virtual currency like Bitcoins, the finance ministry said in a written reply to the Parliament.

“RBI has cautioned the users, holders and traders of Virtual Currencies (VCs), including Bitcoins about the potential financial, operational, legal customer protection and security related risks that they are exposing themselves to. The creation, trading or usage of VCs including Bitcoins, as a medium for payment have not been authorised by the RBI,” the finance ministry said .

The ministry said that promotion of digital economy is an integral part of government’s strategy to clean the system and weed out corruption and black money. “The earlier initiatives of the government to promote financial inclusion and the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity were important pre-curser,” it said.

The finance ministry also said that the demand of swipe machines in the country has increased after November 8, 2016.

This, the ministry said, was evident from the fact that during the months of November and December 2016, 2.52 lakh PoS machines have been installed. “Neither the government has undertaken any study to assess the number of PoS machines needed to ensure smooth cashless economy in the country nor the government has any proposal for procuring PoS machines,” it said.

RBI has issued guidelines to prevent PoS fraud and directed the banks to add more security features in credit and debit cards to stop frauds.

“Public Sector banks have been advised by the government to structure rental payments in such a manner that the small merchant does not have to pay more than `100 per month rental on the installation of PoS terminals,” said the ministry.