Indian fintech puts its money on AI

Companies use technology for purposes as varied as cashier-less payments and credit assessment

- AJINKYA KAWALE

India's decade-old fintech sector is putting artificial intelligence (AI) at the heart of its work, using the technology for purposes as varied as credit assessment and understanding complex data.

Gandhinagar-based Infibeam Avenues, a key player in the payment aggregation space through its CCAvenue brand, is just one fintech company investing heavily in AI. The company reported a 27 per cent yearly growth in consolidated revenue, reaching ₹944.5 crore in the second quarter of FY25. Its expenses increased by ₹900.5 crore, driven by "forward-looking investments" in AI-powered innovations, according to Vishal Mehta, chairman and managing director of Infibeam Avenues.

"In AI, the first place we are investing in is video intelligence. We are creating systems where the [AI] model can understand video, the context within that frame, scene identification and activity within an input. Once that is done you can enable payments on top of it," said Mehta.

He calls the model "Uberisation of payments". It will be like the cashier-less technology at Amazon Go stores: Companies like Infibeam will enable customers to make payments using video intelligence technology that tracks and monitors items added to their shopping carts.

Infibeam's Phronetic.AI division has secured $1 million contracts from hospitals and gas stations to deploy similar services.