'Innovation' is driving the Fintech Revolution in India Indian regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Reserve Bank of India have constantly embraced innovation in the finance and fintech space, paving the way for a mature economy.
By Paromita Gupta •
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India keeps on leaving everyone in awe. Be it the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan), Chandrayaan missions, or our digital payment infrastructure. Our Unified Payments Interface is constantly known to impress world leaders. India's UPI story is a success story, which is being piloted in other countries such as Singapore, UAE, Nepal, Bhutan, France, and Sri Lanka.
The good news is that the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Reserve Bank of India have constantly embraced innovation in the finance and fintech space, paving the way for a mature economy.
"The securities market space and those of you who have been tracking the developments would already know it is not new to the area of innovation. You go back three decades, and you'll see there have been so many developments over time starting with the screen-based trading, dematerialization, online trading of the mutual fund platforms, and easier onboarding through KYC," shared Amarjeet Singh, Whole Time Member, SEBI.
Calling the Stock Exchange more of a tech company than an exchange platform itself, he shares "I would say we are ahead of the curve compared to many other sectors."
With UPI, the lives of common man have become much easier. Notably, it also contributed towards the rise of retail investors in the country, due to it's transaction time taking just 24 hours compared to two to three days taken by banks. According to RBI reports, Indian households showed a jump of 2.5x in mutual fund investment in FY22 as compared to FY21.
The announcement of direct mutual funds by SEBI further fuelled investments. The decision launched the rise of investment platforms in the country and gave birth to the likes of Groww Scripbox, Fisdom, Jama, Funds Inn, Nivesh, Upraise, Kuvera, and Invezta. Says Lalit Keshre, Co-Founder and CEO, Groww, "We have been lucky that we are growing and that regulations are coming in the right time and favoring us." Reportedly, Groww's 60% of users hail from tier 2, 3 cities.
"We have to play a very fine financing game. We have to allow innovation in the markets and the markets have to grow. Finance fuels economic growth and fintech fuels finance," concluded Singh.
The comments were made at the sidelines of the Global Fintech Fest 2023.
