The Tamil Nadu Government has constituted a FinTech Governing Council to facilitate the establishment of FinTech companies in the State.
The Industries Minister and the Chief Secretary will be its Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson respectively. Three members from the FinTech sector are also in the council.
They are Balaji Nuthalapadi, Managing Director and Head of Operations & Technology, Citi South Asia; Sundar Kannan, who is a director of a leading Wall Street investment banking corporation; and Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, former Chairman and Managing Director of Cognizant India and past president of the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The Secretaries of the Departments of Industries, Finance, Information Technology and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises are members. The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Guidance Tamil Nadu will be the member-convener. The Chief Executive Officer, FinBlue/Director, Software Technology Parks of India, Chennai Centre, is also a member. The government order constituting the council was issued last week.
The council is mandated to monitor the progress and implementation of initiatives in FinTech and related sectors.
It will form subcommittees to address various themes in the FinTech policy such as marketing and branding, business development and outreach, partnerships, education, venture capital and regulation. The council will also list the support of experts and specialist institutions. Additional representatives from the government, the industry and the academia will be included in the council as required for the activities to be undertaken. The council will meet once in six months.
The Government has identified FinTech as one of the ‘sunrise sectors’, and is coming up with a FinTech policy. It has also announced a FinTech Cell. A FinTech city is being planned at Nandambakkam in Chennai at an estimated cost of ₹165 crore.
The Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Limited (TIDCO) has earmarked 112.80 acre of land at Nandambakkam for establishment of the FinTech City and intends to develop the FinTech City in three phases. The tender for creating infrastructure for phase 1 of 21.13 acre was floated on Friday.