2nd India-UK financial markets dialogue held; focus on sustainable finance, cryptoassets

New Delhi, April 19 (IANS) The second India-UK financial markets dialogue took place on Wednesday, where both sides discussed several areas with a view to deepen the financial services relationship -- focusing on sustainable finance, insurance, asset management, capital markets and payments and cryptoassets.

Richard Knox, director for International Financial Services at UK's treasury and Surbhi Jain, joint secretary in the economic affairs department of the Finance Ministry, co-chaired the meeting.

According to a joint statement issued by the British government, both India and the UK discussed existing collaboration between central banks on climate scenario analysis and stress testing, as well as capacity building and spreading awareness on climate risk and sustainable finance.

Moreover, it was decided that opportunities to collaborate around sovereign green bonds would be explored.

Both sides agreed to engage bilaterally on these areas in the coming months with the government-led sustainable finance forum in June to advance green cooperation followed by the ministerial Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) later in the year.

Following the government-to-government discussion, business leaders from the India-UK Financial Partnership (IUKFP) were invited to the discussion.

Both governments welcomed the appointment of Bill Winters, group chief executive of Standard Chartered, as the new UK Chair of the IUKFP alongside Uday Kotak, managing director and CEO Kotak Mahindra Bank, as India Chair.