Spice Route Legal
Ankita Hariramani
Education
What Ankita brings to the table
Ankita is the co-head of our Financial Services and Fintech practice. She brings a deep, cross-sectoral understanding of the regulatory frameworks governing traditional and established institutions as well as fast-evolving digital platforms. Her work spans complex, high-stakes matters at the intersection of innovation and compliance , and she is widely regarded as a leading voice in India’s financial services and digital transformation narrative.
Ankita’s expertise enables her to advise clients navigating the layered regulatory terrain that dictates the ebb and flow of financial services in India. Her practice covers debt, payments, data protection, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, securities, machine learning, insurance, blockchain, technology, cryptocurrency, wealthtech and financial markets, prevention of money laundering, and more.
Ankita also has significant experience advising on gaming and e-commerce regulations, regularly assisting market-leading platforms in these spaces on compliance, classification, and strategy. She regularly advises technology giants on cutting-edge issues including artificial intelligence, and reverse solicitation. She is also a recognised expert on data protection, with a particular focus on the use of data in financial services – including compliance with India’s evolving privacy framework, data localisation mandates, consent architecture, and financial data governance.
Ankita is recognised as one of India’s leading financial services regulatory lawyers. Her expertise has earned her consistent recognition across global legal directories. She is recognised as a “Next Generation Partner“ by The Legal 500, as a “Rising Star Partner” by IFLR1000, and “Rising Star” by AsiaLaw, and is also included in the honour roll by Chambers and Partners.
Representative matters:
- Assisted one of the world’s largest insurance companies on building its core tech stack in compliance with IRDAI cybersecurity and outsourcing guidelines and with negotiating tech sourcing contracts with some of the largest technology companies in the world.
- Assisted one of the world’s largest and oldest investment banking companies on navigating SEBI’s cybersecurity framework, including regulatory classification, compliance roadmap, infrastructure governance, and cross-border data management, ensuring alignment with evolving Indian regulatory expectations.
- Assisted one of the largest global payments & technology companies in navigating the Indian regulatory framework pertaining to the operation of the Account Aggregators (AA) ecosystem and assisting with solutions for establishing open banking services.
- Assisted a consortium of India’s 18 largest commercial banks in forming a joint venture to create a blockchain-focused trade finance platform, the first of its kind in India.
- Pioneered the legal structuring of many of the most innovative ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ schemes in India.
- Advising India’s first BSE-listed non-bank issuer of cards on various regulatory matters, including conducting an audit of their products to ensure compliance with financial sector regulations.
- Advised a global pharmaceuticals and agricultural products company on structuring a digital agricultural exchange and facilitating solutions for working capital for farmers.
- Advised world’s largest multinational technology giant on the launch of a new product that is intended to reduce credit card information hacking, including product review, identifying legal and regulatory risks and potential mitigation, and structuring the product in line with India’s payment data localisation requirements.
Awards
