With the growing number of FinTech startups in India, the country will soon be placed at front of the global FinTech race.
In the previous few years, India has emerged as a worldwide chief in the finance technology (FinTech) sector. The country has the best FinTech adoption charge in the world and its miles the second-maximum funded sector (by new magnificence investors) after e-commerce in the country. India has the world’s third-biggest FinTech startup surroundings globally with billions of dollars flowing each year and new corporations being released each month. FinTech is rapidly converting the face of the banking industry, as numerous banks are now switching to digitization in addition to paperless and cashless processes. For the uninitiated, FinTech is a term used to explain emerging digital technology that targets to enhance and automate the shipping and utilization of economic services.
Through specialized software programs and algorithms, FinTech facilitates companies, business owners, and customers to manipulate their financial operations and processes. Finance Technology has additionally come to encompass the improvement and use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in today’s times. Although exclusive sectors of FinTech startups keep gaining traction today, a massive part of FinTech nevertheless focuses on the conventional worldwide banking industry. Furthermore, authorities’ actions which include the implementation of demonetization and GST have additionally created a sizeable boom possibility for FinTech initiatives all around the country.
Major trends driving FinTech revolution in India
Supply-side factors
The growth of Fintech and applications in India is driven by diverse macroeconomic factors, including permitting government and regulatory initiatives, India’s demographic dividend, growing countrywide disposable incomes, huge unbanked population, enhancing internet access, and smartphone penetration, and a swiftly evolving e-commerce marketplace.
Demand-side factors
As the financial services industry is evolving from following a transaction-based technique in advance to adopting an extra consumer-centric approach, the cutting-edge technology hired by the Fintech space has created a spot for itself by presenting tailor-made products according to client preferences. India’s rapidly rising tech-savvy client base led by millennials is main the adoption of mobile-first products and offerings. Across diverse elements of the country, especially in tier-2 and 3 cities and smaller towns, clients have leapfrogged cards and wire transfers and moved without delay to phone banking. Moreover, it's been found that in the phone banking area, it is easier to onboard new customers.
Additionally, Fintech is extensively contributing closer to bridging the social gap in India by supplying employment in addition to democratizing education by supplying answers to overcome the demanding situations posed by the traditional financing practices. Recently on December 9, 2021, Paytm signed an MoU with the talent improvement ministry to educate over 6000 younger Indians in Fintech through a six-month course or even provide employment to eligible candidates.
Fintech has additionally helped in augmenting financial inclusion by not only normalizing credit but additionally by bringing gender parity as research advises that the overall trend of financial savings and investments amongst women in India has progressed with accelerated utilization of mobile apps, wallets, and platforms.
According to estimates, earlier than COVID-19, 22 million Indian clients have been in search of credit each month, and 70 percent of them dropped their programs mid-way because of complexities. The modern Fintech industry is normalizing credit scores in smaller and daily existence purchases through mechanisms like purchase now pay later (BNPL), that's ensuring the provision of frictionless credit to people. Scan Now Pay later, Simpl, Lazypay, Flipkart pay later, and many more are examples of apps in addition to processes that are normalizing smaller credit score lending in normal existence.
Technological advancements
The general financial services marketplace is witnessing a chief transition leveraging new and current technologies, consisting of blockchain, AI, ML, and cloud infrastructure. Three key era elements driving the growth of Fintech consist of a strong expertise pool, growing collaboration among banks and Fintech enterprises, as well as the fast pace of technological innovations on a normal basis.
Technology is being exploited to bring in performance in procedures like payments, claims processing, and financial savings marketplaces through e-KYC, video KYC, IoT, AI, virtual signatures, and account aggregation infrastructure. Moreover, those technological advancements are bringing an experience of security amongst customers through biometric identification verification techniques, which include voice, face recognition, and iris scanning.