Nikhil Sahni, Division President, South Asia & Country Corporate Officer, India, Mastercard, today said that collaboration between fintech and banks will help unleash democratisation of credit in the country, leveraged by a robust digital payments ecosystem.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the Digital Money Conference, organised by Payments Council of India, he said: “Today, there is the availability of data and systems that we have created in digital payments, allow you to pull out money so you can actually structure loans. It is time for structuring the smallest size retail loans with the kind and quality of data that is available and this requires a partnership between fintech and banks… RBI Innovation hub can help in getting a few things going. Fundamentally, we are on a cusp of a change, and months and years ahead we will see a fair amount of democratisation of credit.”
Talking about the robust digital payments system in the country, G Padmanabhan, Former Executive Director of RBI, & Senior Consultant, AZB & Partners, mentioned how the financial sector has been undergoing a metamorphosis, driven by digital and pace set by the fintechs. “Fintechs have disrupted and facilitated, driven down the cost, they have made the traditional financial institutions to rethink their business models and pushed the regulators, but having said all this country has come up trumps, particularly in the payment sector — which is being recognised all over the world.”
Echoing similar views, Vishwas Patel, Chairman, Payments Council of India, said: “The adult population of India is digitally empowered with 65 million users transacting with credit cards, 900 million using debit cards, digital wallets, UPI and other new age payment options that have caused major disruptions and transformation in the sector. Rupay, Mastercard, Visa, have played a very pivotal in fulfilling the needs of robust payments and settlements infrastructure in the country. Innovation has been the key driver in the digital payments space.”
About 2500 delegates have registered for the two-event, scheduled for 1&2 December. It will see about 30 sessions and over 100 speakers from across the globe. The event, with the central theme ‘Innovation to Scale’, will discuss how innovation enables payments stakeholders to organically scale up the digital payments while ensuring that existing operations perform consistently and sustainably.
The key speakers at the event are: Dr Saurabh Garg, CEO, UIDAI; Shri P Vasudevan, Chief General Manager, DPSS, RBI; Srinivasu MN, Co-Founder & Director, Bill Desk; Abhijit Bose, Head of India, Whats App; Vishwas Patel, Chairman, Payments Council of India and Director, Infibeam Avenues; Naveen Surya, Chairman, Fintech Convergence Council & Chairman Emeritus, Payments Council of India.
PIDF Scheme—Providing fillip to the dream of less cash India; Regulatory Sandbox – Assessment of learnings so far and the journey ahead are some of the important topics of discussion.
Along with PCI, the event is organised by Lyra, powered by PhonePe, and brought to you by WhatsApp. Eazebuzz has also partnered for the event as the digital collections partner.
About PCI (Payments Council of India)
Payments Council of India was formed under the aegis of IAMAI in the year 2013 catering to the needs of the digital payment industry. The Council was formed inter-alia for the purposes of representing the various regulated non-banking payment industry players, to address and help resolve various industry level issues and barriers which require discussion and action. The council works with all its members to promote payments industry growth and to support our national goal of ‘Cash to Less Cash Society’ and ‘Growth of Financial Inclusion’ which is also the Vision Shared by the RBI and Government of India. PCI works closely with the regulators i.e. Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Finance Ministry and any similar government, departments, bodies or Institution to make ‘India a less cash society’.
Digital Money 