Catalysing Innovation In FinTech

After a bull run of three years, startup funding has slowed down worldwide. Notwithstanding the economic headwinds that have queered the pitch for startups in the funding ecosystem and the RBI’s recent crackdown on PPI credit lines, FinTech as a sector continues to thrive and promises to do so in future. 

With the recent addition of OneCard to the long list of FinTech Unicorns, 22 of the 105 Unicorns in India are from the FinTech sector today. OneCard was the fourth FinTech Unicorn of 2022. But beyond FinTech Unicorns, industry reports suggest that India’s overall FinTech market opportunity is estimated at $1.3 trillion by 2025 and is slated to grow at a CAGR of 31 per cent between 2021 and 2025. Lending technology will take the top spot in FinTech and account for 47 per cent (USD 616 billion) of the market, followed by insurance technology at 26 per cent (USD 339 billion). Digital payments will have a healthy share of 16 per cent ( USD 208 billion) of the FinTech market.

A FinTech Revolution

Late last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that it is now time to convert FinTech initiatives into a FinTech revolution to ensure that financial empowerment touched every citizen in the country. In step with this vision, BW Businessworld hosted the Festival of FinTech on 28 May, 2022, at the Taj ( M. G. Road) in Bengaluru, to celebrate the top achievers in the FinTech space.

The nominations for the event were assessed by an eminent jury panel that included Sethuratnam Ravi, Managing Partner, Ravi Rajan & Company, Chairman TFCI and former Chairman, Bombay Stock Exchange, E. S. Rao, MD and CEO, INCI, former MD and Chairman BoG MDI, Srinath Sridharan, Corporate Advisor, Lakshmi Iyer, President and Chief Investment Officer (Debts) and Head Products, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company, Girish Kulkarni, Chairman Asia-Pacific, Dai-ichi Life insurance, Ninad Karpe, Partner, 100X.VC, Naigesh Bailur, CFO, Randstad India, Dr Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld and Founder, Exchange4Media, Hoshie Ghaswalla, CEO, BW Engage, BW Businessworld and Noor Fathima Warsia, Group Editorial Director, BW Businessworld.

The BW Festival of FinTech brought together leaders in innovation, who had been driven by FinTech and have contributed to sustainable economic development at scale. It attracted luminaries from industry and public life like Kannan Murali (Head of Product and Data Engineering at M2P FinTech), Amit Goel (Prove’s Country Head - India), Nalin Bansal (Chief of Corporate and FinTech Relationships and Key Initiatives at NPCI), and Aravind Limbavalli (former Minister in the Government of Karnataka and MLA, Mahadevapura Constituency).

In his address on ‘India’s Financial Inclusion and Digitisation Success Story’, Nalin Bansal underscored the diminishing difference between the rich and poor in owning a bank account. “The paperless layer had enabled a rapid growth of accounts,” he said. He pointed out that even though widespread inclusion of accounts occurred when bank accounts were opened, the increased utilisation of the bank accounts have happened with the digitisation of payments through various payment modes in recent years. Today the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) accounts hold between Rs 35-40 crore and the number of Rupay cards issued to these accounts has gone up to about 30 crore, he said.

In his keynote address on the ‘Rising industry of FinTech’, S. Ravi focussed on the scale at which the FinTech segment operates, pointing out that the sector included 2,200 companies. “In the next five years, India could be at the top in the FinTech segment globally,” he prophesied.  Ravi also called on FinTech players to focus on governance and compliance as they progressed on their growth trajectory. Like his fellow speakers at the event, he too expressed his confidence in the undeniable growth prospects of the FinTech industry.