India best place for Fintech firms: Modi

...India’s vast market can enable Fintech products to achieve scale, reduce risks and costs... It also helps that India has the largest data consumption in the world. NARENDRA MODI, Prime Minister

NEWDELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched a new digital platform to connect Asean and Indian banks and financial technology firms and pitched India as the “best destination” for fintech companies and startups.

Speaking as the first head of government to deliver the keynote address at the Singapore Fintech Festival, Modi said the economies of scale achieved in India by the LED bulb industry allowed the technology to become more affordable globally.

“Likewise, India’s vast market can enable Fintech products to achieve scale, reduce risks and costs, and go global,” he said

“It also helps that India has the largest data consumption in the world and the cheapest rates for data... So I say this to all the Fintech companies and startups: India is your best destination,” he added.

Along with Singapore’s deputy premier, T Shanmugaratnam, Modi launched APIX (Application Programming Interface Exchange), a global platform that will initially connect Asean and Indian banks and Fintech firms before being rolled out more widely.

APIX is a banking technology platform designed to reach two billion people worldwide who are still without bank accounts and was designed by software experts in Hyderabad, Colombo and London.

Modi said his presence at the Fintech festival, the world’s largest, was an acknowledgement of the financial revolution in India that had changed 1.3 billion lives.

“With the power of Fintech and the reach of digital connectivity, we have started a revolution of unprecedented speed and scale... More than a billion biometric identities, more than a billion bank accounts and more than a billion cell phones give India by far the biggest public infrastructure in the world,” he said.