Fintech Global Trend: Reflections on the Fintech Festival India 2022
Published on : Friday 02-09-2022
The organisers spent enough time with industry experts to create niche and vertical specific conversations, says Utpal Chakraborty.
It is not surprising that FinTech has taken a sharp turn since 2020 and that has now been distinctly evident in 2022. I would say, FinTech is no longer the traditional one, but it has been able to evolve itself to match the current demand and future to a great extent. Probably the same goes for InsurTech and RegTech that will be noticeable in the coming few years.
Also, the FinTech firms are trying to expand their horizon beyond traditional areas of banking & finance and trying to come out from the comfort zone and explore something where competition is still less.
The same trend was noticeable in the ‘Fintech Festival India 2022’ that took place at Pragati Maidan, Delhi from 20th till 22nd July 2022 organised by Constellar, in association with NITI Aayog, powered by CoinSwitchKuber and CoinDCX and supported by the Banking and FinTech fraternity. The grand event hosted almost 8000+ Business Visitors, 500+ Delegates across 35+ Sessions and Discussions on different topics. With 100+ Speakers from the industry across the globe and with over 100+ Exhibitors and Sponsors, FinTech Festival India has been able to proclaim a global stage like it got featured on Times Square, Nasdaq.
Although the traditional players like Digital Payments, Remittances, Financial Analytics and AI Powered Banking & Customer Care Solutions showcased their capabilities but the companies and solutions that took centre stage this time were Blockchain, Crypto, Web 3.0, Metaverse, NFTs, Wearable Devices for financial transactions. Along with all those obvious and expected players, few other startups that attracted my attention were No-Code & Low-Code platforms, PaaS solutions and Cybersecurity for the financial industry and few of the InsurTech and RegTech solutions.
If I now compare this trend with the Global FinTech trends, we can easily notice the evolution of Blockchain is going to transform the entire financial landscape, maybe it will take some time for widespread adoption, but no one can stop this revolution. Blockchain, being at the core for transactions and execution of Smart Contracts, Crypto as a community currency and NFTs (Non-fungible Token) defining the ownership of assets in the virtual universe called ‘Metaverse’. Looks a bit unrealistic and difficult to digest for many, especially finding a right use case for such NewGen technologies for the financial sector, but trust me; things have already started happening and some banks have already started building utilities in the Metaverse around banking services.
While moderating a session on Metaverse in the Banking World, it was enlightening for me from my co-panellists that silly NFTs (Non-fungible Tokens) have already paved their way to mainstream finance. In fact, they can be used to represent ownership of any unique asset, such as a certificate for an object in the digital or physical realm. NFTs are digital asset representations that are likened to digital passports because each token contains a unique, non-transferable identification to distinguish it from other tokens. Unique NFT data makes it easy to verify ownership and transfer tokens between owners while transacted. NFTs contain ownership information for easy identification and transfer of tokens between token holders.
From the few other booths I missed visiting but came to know from my friends, InsurTech and RegTech have already achieved a great momentum. Also, concepts and solutions like Buy-Now-Pay-Later and Fintech Payroll solutions will make their way very soon in countries like India. Concepts like Salary-on-Demand, Advance Salary and Crypto-Payroll are going to revolutionise the way we see traditional payroll and finance today.
Web3.0 is going to come to the forefront in a big way and Facebook is going to set the benchmark for all others that what experienced users can expect from a ‘Meta’ environment and what all utilities can be availed, and the financial industry will not be an exception.
The Rise of ‘Digital-Only’ Banking or ‘Neo-Bank is going to spark the adoption of NewGen solutions including in the areas of RegTech, because these two need to go hand in hand to actually bring in an adaptive culture in the financial world.
I was expecting few players and solutions on the sustainability front – solutions encouraging Financial Inclusion and Green Finance, but unfortunately either there were none or escaped from my eyes.
Overall, it was a grand event, the organisers spent enough time with industry experts to create niche and vertical specific conversations which help understand how the entire ecosystem will work in a specific segment within the fintech industry. The venue for the event itself was magnificent and no need to say that food in Delhi is always great and the same is reflected in the FinTech festival during lunch. Met lots of friends from the financial industry and other industries and had great conversations and networking.
Special Thanks to – Amit Sharma from Constellar.io ; Amit Mishra and Yasmin Laskar from E&Y.
(Views expressed above are personal opinions of the author.)
Utpal Chakraborty is Chief Digital Officer at Allied Digital Services Ltd. A former Head of Artificial Intelligence at YES Bank, he is an eminent Data Scientist, AI researcher and Strategist, having 21 years of industry experience, including working as Principal Architect in L&T Infotech, IBM, Capgemini and other MNCs in his past assignments. Utpal is a well-known researcher, writer and speaker on Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Agile & Lean at conferences around the world.
His recent research on machine learning titled “Layered Approximation for Deep Neural Networks” has been appreciated in different premier conferences, institutions, and universities.
