FM Nirmala Sitharaman warns against financial influencers

New Delhi, April 23

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said that while there was no proposal to regulate financial influencers on social media, the Finance Ministry was working with the RBI and the IT Ministry to curb ponzi apps.

However, Sitharaman said people should be careful and not follow everything social media influencers suggest.

“When you take financial advice at face value, it means you are risking your hard-earned money. If there are three or four persons giving us objective suggestions, there are others who are probably driven by some agenda. We must always double-check and tread cautiously,” she said at an event in Tumkur, Karnataka, on Sunday.

Speaking on another digital-era challenge — crypto assets — Sitharaman said, “India, under its G20 presidency, has kept crypto assets regulation as an agenda item and the IMF has written a paper on cryptocurrency.”