Team size: 25+

What is the biggest risk facing your industry now and how are you preparing your organisation to deal with this?

The financial services (FS) industry has witnessed sweeping regulatory changes in the last couple of years. Whether it is the RBI’s revised norms on regulatory architecture for large NBFCs, clampdowns on the fintech sector, overhauling the securitisation and secondary loan market, or even recent liberalisation norms on overseas investments; the primary and secondary effects of these changes would alter the competitive landscape in India for FS players. In a similar vein, SEBI proactively has been tightening the regulations in the listed debt space, AIF norms, to make the Indian market more competitive and dynamic.

Moving away from SEBI-RBI, with a greater drive towards automation, smart contracts and adoption of AI, the laws governing the digital space are still evolving. Furthermore, consumers are now more conscious of their data privacy and confidentiality rights. While compliance cost increases, it also enables the more significant and serious players to act as industry stewards and differentiate themselves from other players.

We are adapting to these changing trends by digitising our work stream and adopting both ‘on the shelf’ and ‘off the shelf’ products for various functions pertaining to litigation management, diligences, monitoring stage of transactions, documentation management and many more. Secondly, for our B2B and B2C services, the legal team has dedicated resources who are market experts in specific verticals. Their key mandate consists of monitoring market and regulatory developments in those verticals. This enables us to remain nimble and act as a common resource centre for various business teams evaluating new products and structures. To avoid silos, we have regular team updates, wherein best practices and updates are shared.

What are some of the most significant cases or transactions you have worked on recently?

The acquisition of the entire DHFL portfolio and recovery remains a complex ongoing exercise. The complexity arises from optimising recovery through a blend of civil and criminal actions against errant counterparties, structuring bespoke financing solutions for the assets and achieving successful settlements. To achieve optimum and timely recoveries, the key is to identify the right approach or tactics in any given matter (as no two resolutions ever remain the same). During this endeavour, we have also been fortunate to have received various landmark orders in our favour.

What is a cause, business or otherwise, you are passionate about and why?

I am passionate about advocating for continuing changes before the government and the Ministry of Finance in the regulatory aspects of the FS sector. Since I am integrated into the FS space, I have been fortunate enough to have worked in the financial services sector from the inception of my career and have witnessed the growth of this industry. Having a ring-side view of how the sector operates, I take great pleasure and pride in suggesting changes in norms and best practices, which further ease business in India.