The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has issued a discussion paper on regulating algorithmic trading, or trades generated out of automatic execution and logic. Mint examines why the paper has spooked fintech players and brokerages.
Tech-savvy game vaccine queues using CoWIN APIs
3 hours ago
The government may have officially opened up the COVID19 vaccination program to people in the 18-45 age group, but that doesn’t mean
everyone can get a vaccine. Very few appointment slots have been opened for this age group; states such as Telangana are yet to even officially begin vaccinations for this group. This scarcity has led multiple developers to
macgyver piecemeal solutions in the form of apps, websites and scripts to help the tech-savvy grab all slots minutes after they are opened.
All these third-party services leverage the recently opened up CoWIN Application Programme Interfaces (APIs). They allow users to search for open slots according to district and/or pin code. But where they really outdo the official government portal is in allowing users to register for alerts through email, Telegram and Twitter when slots open up in their desired area.
Government selectively opens up Co-WIN APIs to third parties without data policy
5 hours ago
On April 17, the Government denied permission for software access to the Co-WIN dashboard to Step One, a non-profit organisation (NPO) working on enabling vaccination registration and appointment through WhatsApp. However, on Wednesday it reversed its position and opened selective parts of the Application Programme Interfaces (APIs) for Co-WIN to third parties for appointment vacancies search and vaccination certificate downloads.
In a letter to Step One, dated April 17, the Empowered Group of Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 said that a comprehensive data capture policy needs to be put in place before allowing third-party apps and service access to the COVID-19 dashboard for vaccine registration and delivery. It commended the efforts of Step One to innovate and bring out more options to citizens but said that the “usage of public URLs, capturing personal data, and having citizens use
Will 2021 be the breakout year for neo-banks?
6 hours ago
Last week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) liberalised a few restrictions imposed on pre-paid instruments (PPI) and payment bank players, signalling that the central bank views these companies with greater respect when it comes to handling people’s money. With the widespread usage of digital wallets and the numerous services offered by fintech payment players within an app, the RBI has decided to give these new banking models more room to grow.
The central bank has now allowed digital wallet companies and payment banks to compete with traditional banks for deposits and payments services for a specific market segment. While the adoption of non-bank payments services has largely been driven by a handful of entities in the last few years, banks still have a monopoly on the customer experience when it comes to lending and other services. However, given the success and demand for digital services post-Covid, the regulator and