The Future Of Fintech

THe INAUGURAL BW Businessworld Fintech Summit 2017 — `The Fintech Bridge’ — held at the ITC Grand Central in Mumbai on the 8 September depth-charged the myriad changes in store due to disruption and innovation.  In what’s an indication of the shape of things to come fintech investments surged to over a billion dollars in 2017 from a mere $25 million in 2013.

V Vaidyanathan, Executive Chairman of Capital First pointed out “It would rise further to $2.4 billion in 2020.” Nearly 45 per cent of the populace have no financial assets; and with the type of infrastructure and data accumulation that’s needed, the fintech game is set to catch fire.

JA Chowdary, Advisor IT & Special Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh pointed out the “3Ms”, which would shape the future of desi fintechs. “We will win the war in fintech by focusing on manpower, money and market access… I was asked by the CM of Andhra Pradesh to change and evolve the IT infrastructure of the state. But instead of developing IT, I decided to concentrate on fintech.” He touched upon the ways to improve the analytics to understand the functions of financial institutions and the types of technology support they are seeking. “At the pace we are going, Vizag will be the fintech destination of India and the world.”

Compelling panel discussions continued through the day. “Fintech can enable a billion people to be more productive and it can act as a GDP multiplier,” said Samant Sikka, Chief Dreamer and Founder of Sqrrl. Citing instances where fintechs and banks can collaborate, Vinay Mathews, Founder & COO, Faircent noted: “Banks and financial institutions reject many applications, which can be passed down to us and we can make use of this data.” Vishwadeep Sharma, Chief Business Officer of Cointribe opined, “Compliance, IT security, technology, hosting the solution followed by its execution are the factors that can provide more faith for fintech companies and banks can then work more closely with us.”

On the issue of small enterprises and the aam aadmi, Sanjay Sharma, Co-founder & MD of Aye Finance said “There are five-and-a half crore micro enterprises in India which need funding… credit is a challenge, which we need to overcome and if we rely on old methods, we aren’t going anywhere. We have put psychometric assessment out there over the last six months and that has started easing the workflow.” Abhishek Kothari, Co-founder of Flexiloans was of the view “We have very low data and as a community we need to build principles, which go beyond data security.”

As for the disruptive nature of fintechs, Pallav Jain, Head –Consumer of Payu (India) said, “Fintech is an exciting place to be in. All fintech companies are born out of customer needs. So, the focus on customer delight is something which will make this space grow larger in the years to come.” Bhavik Vasa, Chief Growth Officer at ItzCash felt customers are not comfortable with disruptive innovations or experimentations in financial products. Hemant Kshirsagar, Principal Consultant at PwC, said disruption is about the opportunities available and the ultimate beneficiary is going to be the customer.