Largest virtual fintech meet attracts global attention
The two-day Global Fintech Fest, organised by Fintech Convergence Council, Payments Council of India and NPCI saw participation of 12000 delegates from over 110 countries, including 30% from international community as well as 75 Indian & international exhibitors:
Uday Kotak, Managing Director & CEO, Kotak Mahindra Bank, told the conference risk and risk management will be the big differentiators for banks and will help bankers create unique positions for themselves in the industry. Risk management will continue to remain with banks, he stressed, while participating in a discussion with G. Padmanabhan, Non-Executive Chairman, Bank of India. Arguing for a more inclusive eco-system, he said this is an era of coopetition and banks and fintech will continue to cooperate in some areas while competing in others. However, it will the digital players, who will move ahead, he said, stressing that policy supervision, regulation and governance have to be ownership neutral and have to be the same for both public sector and private banks. He also maintained that he will look for investment opportunities in the fintech sector.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson and Chief Executive of Salesforce India, said digital is imperative and it is empowering and will give better risk management insights. Digital opens up new market segments and gives enterprises a picture of their lending scenario, with which one can manage NPAs better. Reiterating on a more data-driven and digital model, she said that banks will have to be ready for the future. The future is going to be different from anything that we have seen in the past. Banks will therefore have to look at how they approach the entire customer journey - whether they want to be distribution-heavy and branch-light or asset-light, liability-heavy and transaction-heavy. However, being digital and data driven will be crucial for banking.
Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, said the future of lending will be phygital. The latter will be the next big driver in fintech, marked by retail loans. Digital lending will constitute 50% of total lending by 2023. He said the financial technology sector has been the shining star of India’s startup and technology ecosystem, enabling seamless transition from physically connected to a physically distant but socially connected environment.
Nandan Nilekani, Co-founder and Non-Executive Chairman of the Board, Infosys, stated that democratising credit in India is the need of the hour. India needs to go that extra mile in offering credit to the most deserving, smallest businesses and individuals. According to him, Open Credit Enablement Network (OCEN) a platform that connects lenders with marketplaces and thereby with borrowers is a technology system, currently under discussion. If implemented, it can democratize lending to micro enterprises and street vendors in a big way. He suggested, account aggregator service protocols developed and backed by RBI can be a game changer. There is a need to realise that public systems need to be designed keeping in mind not just the top 50 million users but the 1 billion users, the masses, he added.
SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar said that mobile banking, in the days to come. Out of 100 transactions at SBI, only 9 transactions are being mobile banking may become the most preferred banking channel, even more than internet made in branches. Mobile banking has seen a rise from 25%-30% to 55% of all the transactions now.
Naveen Sur ya, Chairman, Fintech Convergence Council, said c urrently India is a very fertile ground for the progression of collaborations between banks and fintechs, accelerating the growth of nascent sec tors l i ke neobanking and digital lending. Aadhaar KYC and video KYC would be the norm in the future and will pick up pace extensively in the near term.