We are pleased to announce that Argus Partners has provided expert practitioner inputs to the Financial Services assessment for India as part of the World Bank Group’s Business Ready (B-READY) 2026 project.

B-READY is the World Bank Group’s data collection and analysis project assessing the business and investment climate worldwide, accompanied by an annual corporate flagship report. Replacing and improving upon the earlier Doing Business project, B-READY assesses economies across three pillars (regulatory framework, public services and operational efficiency) drawing on expert inputs on laws, regulations and public services, together with firm-level data on how the business environment operates in practice.

India is being assessed under the B-READY framework for the first time in the 2026 edition.

The Firm’s inputs covered two areas of the Financial Services assessment – Electronic Payments and Commercial Lending (Customer Due Diligence). The Electronic Payments assessment examines the legal and regulatory framework governing e-payments and payment service providers, including consumer protection, data protection, cybersecurity and operational resilience, interoperability and competition, supervisory oversight and regulatory innovation. The Commercial Lending assessment examines customer due diligence requirements, including identity verification and beneficial ownership, e-KYC and digital identity, data protection and the regulatory framework for digital commercial lending.

The contribution was led by Jitendra Soni, Partner, who was invited by the World Bank Group as an expert for both areas, supported by Sadia Akhter, Senior Associate, and Harsh Garg, Samia Haider and Abhirami Retheev, Associates.

We look forward to the publication of the B-READY 2026 report and the World Bank Group's first assessment of India under the B-READY framework.