Fintech Valley Provides USD 1 Million Funding Under Its New Accelerator Program
Mr. J A Chowdary, Co-founder, Fintech Valley, Vizag and also Advisor IT & Special Chief Secretary to Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh in an interview with BW Businessworld discusses the opportunities created by the 1 and a half-year-old fintech valley in Vizag. The initiative encouraged by the Andhra Pradesh Government has widened the horizon and created an eco-system of academies set up around blockchain, analytics etc. to bring the top financial institutions of the country and around the world in one location. The latest accelerator program with a 1 Million Dollar funding called out to the most efficient startups from the country.
What was the thought behind setting up the Fintech Valley in Vizag?
Today the whole paradigm of banks is changing in India, branches are closing down and technology has shown us that there is immense room for disruption. When conventional banks are becoming technology companies and they have to work towards a lot of development. Since we wanted to promote the tech industry, we chose banking and fintech because this industry is growing by 26% globally. There are a lot of banks in India that need to start transforming from traditional methods of operations to digital banking and only 10% of such banks are actually promoting the transformation. Hence it is a great opportunity with the typical vanilla IT services going down due to automation and fintech which has become a niche area. Factors like cyber security, blockchain technology, artificial intelligence & machine learning and analytics are the drivers of new age banking and this is the space where fintech players and startups can work with financial institutions on a higher scale. We then thought that this was a great opportunity for us to create a fintech valley like Silicon Valley where there are concentrated efforts to evolve the banking industry of India.
What were the main strategic pillars that helped you create the Fintech Valley?
We adopted a 5 M strategy for this industry to grow and that is what helped us in strategizing on our long-term goal.
The 5 M strategy includes:
Manpower:
Manpower in this industry is required to understand the deep digital knowledge and current syllabus in schools do not provide the kind of digital education to students. There is a reason we set up I.I.D.T. (International Institute of Digital Technologies) along with I.S.B. (Indian School of Business) and I.I.I.T. (Indian Institutes of Information Technology) to provide deep digital knowledge where our first batch of students received employment in important areas of banking and consulting industry. Cybersecurity and analytics as the subjects around which we built 2 schools and we are now inaugurating the 3rd school in the year 2018 of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning along with a school for Blockchain Technologies.
Money:
We have recently announced a 1 Million Dollar funding for startups who would be selected to work and create a base in the Fintech Valley, Vizag. The program was initiated in collaboration with ICICI Bank and Mahindra Finance as corporate partners and Microsoft as the technology & acceleration partner to develop a high potential FinTech ecosystem focused on co-creating innovative solutions. Our chief minister had recently announced a fall on the fund to be created worth Rs 500 crore with Rs 100 crore to be sponsored by the Government of Andhra Pradesh. The remaining Rs 400 crore would be coming in from the partners for the startup companies coming to Fintech Valley Vizag.
Market Access:
We encouraged all the multi-national companies from the fintech industries to setup fintech academies with local universities. For e.g. we have the Gitam University who have tie-ups with Mastercard, HSBC, Visa, Thomson Reuters etc. Thereby the university and the industry have a good marriage. Hence it is very important for us to keep producing students who could have the right knowledge of the market and could work accordingly in the fintech industry. For the first time in the country, we have created the largest used case fintech repository where they have more than 24 corporates partnered with us and 116 used cases. We help create a buzz about the latest developments of the industry by keeping the students engaged and arranging competitions like Hackathon where we provide a prize money to the winner and a gateway to connect with the market.
Mentoring:
When government becomes a customer it is not easy to sanction a business deal unless a particular startup can fulfil those needs. Hence at the Fintech Valley, Vizag mentoring is really important and we make sure that whenever a customer is keen to look for fintech companies that can fulfil their needs, then we provide the best of mentoring and make sure they get an audience from the respective departments to banks and other financial institutes.
Meet-up events:
We are several international meets up events where startup companies based in Vizag can network with efficient investors and financers flying down from international destinations as well. We are planning an international event in April 2018 based on cyber security which Mastercard and the A.P Government are working on very closely. In case of meet up events taking place in other cities, we would buy stalls for our startups to be present over there.
This 5 M strategy has really helped us address to the best of the big, small and medium level companies and within one and a half years we have been rated in the top-five fintech destinations of the world. The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh has announced that by the end of 2019 the entire government will be on the blockchain and we are creating our own protocol known as the Velugu Protocol.
How efficient has the Fintech Valley, Vizag been in creating jobs and providing growth opportunities?
For example, if we take the blockchain implementation in our own government, then it requires a large number of professionals and India is seeing a big shortage over there. A company known as Black Cactus are getting the healthcare blockchain contracts from all over Europe and they want to do all the implementations with the companies located in the Fintech Valley Vizag. The cost of manpower over here is very low and we have an entire eco-system that is being created and Black Cactus are targeting to employ 500 professionals just for their blockchain department. This an effect caused by just one company and Conduent out of 8000 people are hiring 4000 people for their technology department. Franklin Templeton is setting up a 40-acre campus while PayTm who is already located there are hiring 1000 people in 2018 to work in the information technology unit. Since we are a and a half-year-old baby we hope that it will grow more in the next 1 year and create far more jobs and opportunities for the fintech industry.
What is the significance of Finackathon? Has it been efficient in spreading awareness related to the fintech industry in India?
All the hackathons that we are conducting is a way by which we can create a platform to understand the problems in the fintech industry especially related to cyber-crime and hacking. Hence we are calling out to various entrepreneurs and startups to solve use cases and come up with solutions to overcome certain problems related to the technology. In order to encourage i=these initiatives, we also provide a prize money to the winners to improve their solutions and connect them with banks and financial institutions. Ethical Hackers are one of the most important parts of a tech company and they help to create the balance. We are encouraging all sorts of resourceful manpower to grow and help the Fintech Valley Vizag grow as well.
Can you name few startups that have been shortlisted to work with the Andhra Pradesh government?
Fingpay allows customers to pay for products, services and utilities at POS from any of their bank accounts and/or wallets with just a scan of a finger. It provides a retail payment and collection solution enabling merchants to accept digital payments even from customers without a card or wallet or mobile. Their focus is towards financial inclusion and it is founded by Partyush Halen.
Incremint, which promote financial inclusion, plans to use digital technology to help people get access to the products and lead a financially secure life.
The startup provides a tool to both agents and customers to create a hybrid ecosystem (physical + digital) to increase adoption of financial products. Incremint focuses towards creating a digital distribution platform.
Where do you see the Fintech Valley Vizag in the next 5 years?
At the moment we are rated as the top 5 emerging fintech destinations around the world within 1 and a half years. 5 years from now we want to be one of the top 2 fintech destinations in the world.
_20240919121249_original_image_30.webp)
_20240915134155_original_image_47.webp)