Rise of fintech 2.0- building a future-ready fintech

Forbes India, AWS, in association with IvyCap Ventures hosted an event ‘The Mavericks’ focused on the theme: 'Rise of Fintech 2.0' at the ITC Windsor in Bengaluru to dive deeper into the evolving Fintech ecosystem in India and the development of innovation in this sector. Numerous panel talks and founders conversations enlightened the audience on how to develop a Fintech organization that is focused on the future.

The event’s theme- Rise of Fintech 2.0 aimed towards educating the audience on the various aspects of building a Fintech organisation as well as adapting to technological innovations. Apart from this, business and leadership aspects were touched upon to provide an all-encompassing overview of the industry.

Welcome note by Manu Balachandran, Associate Editor, Forbes India

In his welcome note- Manu Balachandran, Associate Editor at Forbes India, discussed how India is home to over 6000 Fintechs and its Fintech industry is estimated at over $30 billion. With it being recognized as the largest Fintech ecosystem globally, Indian fintech players have tapped into this lucrative opportunity.

The most promising fintech giants are changing the landscape and shaping the industry with their innovative solutions and plans to make it future-ready.

Founders Panel: Building A Future-Ready Fintech

As the event highlighted several eye-opening points, the Founders Panel moderated by Harichandan Arakali, Editor - Tech & Innovation, Forbes India, speakers like Bhupendra Kumar, Head, Growth Business, DNB, AWS, Anshul Rai, Co-Founder & CEO, Happay, Rajeev Agrawal, Founder & CEO, Innoviti Technologies, and Sashank Rishyasringa, Co-Founder & MD, Axio, discussed the rise of innovation in FinTech and the importance of cloud computing in this industry, among others.

(From Left to Right)- Bhupendra Kumar- AWS | Siddharth Patnaik- Upstox | Narendra Babu- PayU India | Karthikeyan Krishnaswamy- KreditBee | Anshul Rai- Happay | Sashank Rishyasringa – Axio | Rajeev Agrawal- Innoviti Technologies | Satinder Singh- AWS | Ashish Wadhwani- IvyCap Ventures.

Credit is Imperative

Credit is seen as one of the potential opportunities in this industry along with tech innovations. Talking about how tech is impacting credit and changing the Fintech landscape, Sashank Rishyasringa said, "Credit is an imperative. We have the vision to be a 5 trillion dollar economy but no one has done that without concurrent expansion of retail credit. If you look at India, we have a 70% credit gap between demand and supply below the top 20% income owners. In terms of problems to solve is a problem to scale. In this regard, technology has been a game-changer, because they've crashed the cost of acquisition and underwritten the risks of customers who haven't gotten a loan before. The other problem is how to make this credit work for the population. Technology has helped us design quality credit products by being transparent, tied to a use case, and combined with financial behaviour for the next set of customers."

Rise of collaborative commerce

Fintech is seen as a digital and cloud-native company. Collaborative commerce is an emerging area in the Indian fintech landscape. Sharing how technology is driving this space, Rajeev Agrawal said, "At Innoviti Technologies, we try to provide solutions that help businesses reduce the costs of acquisition. Behind every purchase made by you, lies a purpose. Purpose brings the customers to the centre of the transaction. You can't change the fact that the cost of acquisition is rising but what you can change is those diverse businesses targeting the same consumers, could they come together and target the consumer together?"

Reliance on tech tools and their impact

Sharing his thoughts on the tech tools that one can rely on and which tech innovations are driving the fintech industry, Anshul Rai said, "Large banks in India are still running on a massive set-up to process transactions. Technology has enabled us to run everything on the cloud and bring down the cost of processing significantly. The third-party cannot integrate with the bank's existing system and bring about innovation. There exists ambiguity in the regulatory framework that we solve. However, technology is solving this challenge like payment stacks, banking layers, licenses, security, etc."

The promise of the cloud from renting storage and computing has evolved into a rich ecosystem across several verticals. Talking about the AWS Blueprint for Fintech customers, Bhupendra said, "AWS and everyone are bullish about this sector. Looking at the scalability of businesses, India's UPI segment has seen massive growth. We expect to reach the 5.2% penetration mark to become a larger insurance market globally. Speaking about the AWS Blueprint, the company caters to 200+ functionalities like isolation networks, secure cloud services, etc."

Conclusion

The next decade will see massive growth for the Fintech industry. The sophistication of technology and enablers will drive the future of the Fintech landscape in India.