Fintech Driver Of India's Growth Engine, Says Piyush Goyal

Fintech is not only an enabler but is the driver of the growth engine of India, said Union Minister of Textiles, Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs and Food and Public Distribution, Piyush Goyal on Thursday while addressing an industry forum.

Recalling Paypal’s Alexander Peh’s statement that the major winners will be financial services firms that will embrace technology, the minister called out the "captains" of the fintech world across the country to work together and take the sector to greater heights.

Goyal lauded fintech Innovators and said that they have brought the citizens of this country a new azaadi. “With fintech Innovations we now have azaadi from the cumbersome ways of the past, azadi from the long lines and azadi from time taking transactions,” he added. He further stated that the fintech sector is empowering the poorest of the poor and people in the remotest corners of the country are now enjoying banking and all associated services.

Goyal highlighted that with rapid expansion in mobile and internet connections and with the National Broadband Mission, soon every village in India will have high speed internet and that can be leveraged to make India a fintech innovation hub.

Goyal also said that with the JAM (Jan-Aadhaar-Mobile) Trinity, the government has been ensuring transparent and timely delivery of social benefits and this Trinity has improved immensely in the last seven years because of fintech innovations. “While this JAM Trinity helped us in building the initial technical capabilities, our fintech players actually brought the icing on top of the cake and have made banking and financial transactions so simple that teaching an unbanked person this whole process has become seamless across the country,” he said.

Goyal noted that the recently launched Open Credit Enablement Network (OCEN) and the Account Aggregator Framework will enable formal credit flow to the most vulnerable sections of the society and will help financial institutions to reach large segments of people by lowering their distribution cost.