GFF 2025: Five things RBI governor wants fintechs to focus on
Malhotra laid out the roadmap for the next phase of the digital finance journey to be built with trust and spirality as its central themes
Last Updated: Oct 08, 2025, 21:09 IST2 min
Prefer us on Google
Advertisement
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra wants fintechs in India to consider five points. Malhotra outlined these while speaking about driving inclusive growth through digital public infrastructure and fintech, at a session on Day 2 of the Global Fintech Fest 2025, in Mumbai.
Build for inclusion: While there may be higher profits to be made by deepening access, fintechs must prioritise building systems to expand financial services to tap the unaccessed, the unreached and the unserved segments of society.
Adopt a customer first approach: Get closer than ever to your customer, tell them what they need well before they realise it themselves. Fintechs should design products and services which are easy to use and accessible for all.
Innovate in credit delivery: Extend the success of digital payments.
Prioritise trust and compliance: Embed strong data protection, transparency and safeguards for consumers into every product and service.
Also Read: GFF 2025: Why AI & credit infra could be key risks for Indian finance
Think global while you anchor local: Fintechs should engage with international partners, share learnings, adopt global best practices and strengthen India’s role in shaping the future of digital finance.
“By embracing these principles, a vibrant ecosystem, a digitally connected population enabling policies and a deep tech tail end, fintechs can bridge digital divides, foster healthy competition and drive innovation. In doing so, fintechs will not only secure their own growth and prosperity, but also play a very vital and pivotal role in driving growth of the nation,” he said.
“We stand today at an important juncture in the digital finance journey. The past decade has demonstrated how technology can expand, access and empower businesses. The next phase must be built on this foundation by keeping trust and spirality as its central themes,” he added.
Fintechs can be the architects of design and help construct digital highways as well as products and services on them that will be able to generate social and economic value. The RBI, he said, has already focussed on some areas that have helped boost the financial ecosystem. These include aggregation and leveraging the financial data; the expansion and usage of the digital rupee (CBDC), which now has 7 billion users of person-to-person and person-to merchant connectivity. The third area of focus was asset tokenisation, which offers new possibilities for Indian financial markets in expanding reach, improving transparency and enhancing settlement efficiency.
Malhotra also highlighted that artificial intelligence (AI) holds the potential to fundamentally enhance the next generation of DPI (digital payments index) into complimentary ways. Besides this, integrating AI into existing DPI layers, user experience and efficiency can be significantly improved, so that AI can also be deployed as a public goods infrastructure.
The other area of focus, he said, was digital frauds. “The rapid expansion of digital finance has created mew challenges such as digital frauds and cyber threats,” added Malhotra.
First Published: Oct 08, 2025, 21:09
Subscribe NowAdvertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement