India’s fintech push built around digital public infrastructure (DPI) has solved many of its big problems over the past decade, but much of what comes next will be built by new companies because banks cannot address every customer need, Sachin Bansal, founder and executive chairman of Navi Group and co-founder of Flipkart, said.
“Building in the fintech space is an excellent place to be,” Bansal said at the Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai on Friday. “If I look forward 10 years from now, a lot of the fintech problems would have to be solved. And a lot of it will have to be solved by new companies.”
“Most people now have some basic level of bank accounts and payments. But there is still a long way to go.”
More opportunities will open up as new regulatory and technology paradigms remove constraints that exist today, Bansal added.
Banks Face Bandwidth Constraints
Much of that room exists because banks cannot do everything. “Everybody cannot be an expert of everything,” he said. Banks will be unable to pick up many things because of time, bandwidth or resource constraints, leaving room for fintechs. He described banks as “a safe store of value regulated by RBI,” while fintechs make it easier for customers to transact.
“There’s nothing stopping banks from doing that as well. And absolutely banks will try,” he said. But consumer needs are “almost infinite,” while a growing middle class will demand more from both. Even as AI boosts productivity, going deep will create more value than going broad, he added.
Monetisation Shifts
Bansal’s comments come at a time when banks are reportedly set to take the largest share of the merchant discount rate (MDR) being worked out for UPI transactions. The fee would apply only to merchants above a certain annual turnover and to payments above a threshold value, while person-to-person transfers are expected to remain free.
A recent Bank of America report flagged that banks could become more aggressive on UPI once they are able to earn from it, with banks and apps likely to push into both the consumer and merchant segments.
Navi runs the country’s fourth-largest UPI app by transaction volume, with a 4% share in July, although it remains well behind PhonePe and Google Pay, which together accounted for more than 78% of UPI transactions, according to NPCI data.