- By Ankush Aggarwal
Union Budget 2020 India: 2020 is a year of optimism and newer opportunities for fintech space in India as the tech landscape of India is on the verge of being more digitally advanced with the government’s push to run a digitally-driven economy. While capturing mass attention in transitioning India from a cash-dependent to a sustainable cashless economy especially with the government’s Aadhaar-enabled payments system and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India’s payment ecosystem is revolutionized.
The fintech players are altogether redefining the status quo of the financial services industry by adapting a fresh take on problems faced by customers. The fintech industry is playing an important role in the penetration of financial services with digitalization being the priority agenda for the government to enable financial empowerment across the country. India is likely to expect accelerated growth in the fintech sector with a consistent focus on ease of doing business and thrust towards the development of technological infrastructure in the country wherein fintech will be able to gain much more momentum in the digitally-driven economy.
With over a billion mobile phones and 330 million internet users, reforms are required that bring in more transparency, advanced tools, and technologies with an aim to optimize processes to provide the end-user with a superior experience with greater convenience, engagement and enhanced security. The industry expects the upcoming budget to facilitate the adoption of digital access to credit via paperless and presence-less onboarding being the key to drive financial inclusion.
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In India, artificial intelligence and cognitive opportunities, blockchain and distributed ledger technology, robotic process automation and cybersecurity technology is helping solve long-standing issues of financial inclusion and transparency in financial services.
The Reserve Bank of India’s recent announcement of video-based Know Your Customer (KYC) as an option to establish a customer’s identity is a major relief to the fintech startups and digital non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) catering to the gig economy. With the new remote customer authentication option, the service providers need not physically reach out to customers in remote locations aiding in cutting down the costs significantly with the use of face-matching software and AI. India is fast becoming a digital economy. The need of the hour is awareness of digital payments in every nook and corner of the country to boost the digital transactions.
(Ankush Aggarwal is the Founder at Avail Finance. Views expressed are the author’s own.)