Making sense of the New Fintech Order

Fintechs have revolutionized the Indian banking and financial industry. They have brought in innovations and technologies that have changed the Indian banking and financial landscape. Today, most customers prefer mobile and online mode to find their banking and financial products as opposed to physically visiting the banks and insurance companies. ATMs and brick mortar banks are seeing lower footfalls with ‘tap, click, swipe’ becoming new forms of money.  Many small businesses and start ups that were previously denied are now able to avail credits due to improved credit score evaluation techniques practiced by the Fintechs.
 
Fintechs have become integral part of the banking technologies. Their role has rapidly increased in the recent years. But can they continue to contribute at the same pace? What does the future hold for them?

Fintechs in India
Fintechs have had a fantastic run in India as have been aided by:
• Support from many quarters:  Contributions of Fintechs have been valued and they have been provided with the right ecosystem, funding, governmental and regulatory support to grow. Along with these, the democratic nature of the business with equal opportunities to operate and flourish has given the Fintech a major boost.
• Collaboration with Banks: Banks are treating Fintechs as collaborators and not competitors. So, both of them have been mutually benefitting and ultimately giving customers a simplified banking structure.
• Digital boom: The falling price of smart phones, the governmental push for digitization and ecommerce has created the right environment to automate many banking practices using technology.

The Fintech Touch
One of the key achievements of Fintechs is bringing the banks closer to the customer by eliminating unnecessary manual interfaces. These firms have been successful in making banking easier, simpler and reducing the cost of operation.
 
Fintechs are good at unbundling banking services, have expertise in technology, speed and agility. Banks have a large customer base, scale, and deep funding franchise. When they collaborate, many under banked and unbanked sectors can be brought under banking umbrella. For example – they can enable 30 Cr Jan Dhan accounts to join main stream banking, better the customer service with digital footprints available from variety of sources. In short, Fintechs have the potential to setup systems to make banking process seamless and paperless and even offer real time credit.

Outlook for future of Fintech
Fintech’s services are necessary for the banks to enter into unexplored areas like digitization of trade, avert cyber crimes with continuous monitoring and detection. So, Fintechs and banks would continue their collaboration but their roles may alter.

For an in depth analysis of  the challenges and opportunities for the Fintechs, A B Ravi had a detailed discussion with Sanjay Gurjar, MD and Head, Transaction Banking, Standard Chartered Bank India and Nepal

Amit Goel , Founder,Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer , MEDICI and Sameer Singh Jaini, CEO, The Digital Fifth

Catch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp_m_jT-OfY&t=2s