India's fintech sector poised for next phase of growth

Question: Is India's fintech sector growing domestically as well as globally? This was promised by the Government at the time of introduction of the last budget proposals.

- HP Ranina

ANSWER: India's fintech sector now comprises more than 10,000 companies with investment of $40 billion. This is on account of the large technology talent pool and a diverse financial ecosystem. Last month, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India announced the creation of the Unified Market Interface which will enable instant buying, selling and trading of financial assets as digital tokens settled through the central bank's digital currency. India's digital finance ecosystem has reached a critical juncture, driven by data integration, digital currency, asset tokenisation, artificial intelligence and cyber security. Financial data through the account aggregator framework currently serves 160 million accounts.

The Reserve Bank is working on new standards for customer onboarding, consent management and data security. This will promote greater interoperability among aggregators. The commencement of the Unified Lending Interface platform has bridged India's credit gap by linking lenders to verified data sources. Since its launch, 3.2 million loans worth Rs1.7 trillion have been sanctioned. The system will help lenders to use data more effectively to serve individuals with no credit history. The retail digital e-rupee has also been successfully introduced and is adopted by 19 banks and 7 million users. This serves as a critical layer in India's digital public infrastructure.