Strong sense of caution is required against financial influencers: Nirmala Sitharaman

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], April 23 : Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while addressing an interactive session on Sunday in Karnataka said there is no proposal to regulate social and financial influencers but emphasised that a strong sense of caution is required.

She was responding to a question that many people consume social media where financial influencers are the new financial experts.

She was asked whether there are any talks happening on regulating financial influencers.

"At this stage, I am not having any proposal before me for regulating them, but just a word of caution is important. If there are three or four people giving us very objective good advice, there are seven others out of 10 who are probably driven by some other considerations," she said.

"There're many ponzi apps on which we're working with concerned ministry & RBI & clamping down on them like never before," she said.

Social influencers and financial influencers are all out there but a strong sense of caution is required in each one of us to make sure we do double checking, counter-checking, don't go as a flock into something and therefore protect our hard-earned money, she added.

Earlier, in March this year, the Department of Consumer Affairs released a set of guidelines for celebrities, influencers, and virtual influencers on social media platforms.

The guidelines aimed to ensure that individuals do not mislead their audiences when endorsing products or services.

The guidelines stated that endorsements must be made in simple, clear language, and terms such as "advertisement," "sponsored," "collaboration" or "paid promotion" can be used. Individuals must not endorse any product or service that they have not personally used or experienced or in which due diligence has not been done by them.

The department had observed that there is confusion regarding which disclosure word to use for what kind of partnership. Therefore, for paid or barter brand endorsement, it said any of the disclosures such as "advertisement," "ad," "sponsored," "collaboration," or "partnership" may be used.