FinTech PLUS Financial technology
What do you expect around technology evolution in the Indian finance industry?
Indian finance industry has evolved quite heavily since the last three to four years. The impact could be due to the government of India initiative, RBI’s vision statements. We have seen quite a lot rise of UPI mobility. I think it is a good time for the banks to adopt new technologies because the customers are also moving on with new expectations. So, the last three to four years has been really heavily transformation for most of the banks.
How fintech firms are disrupting financial banking and traditional space?
I would say that the fintech firms are a boon for the Indian financial sector. They come up with the right energy and the right problem statement resolving solutions and with the agility and this is what the need of Indian banking right time. If you want to really give expected services to a consumer in no time or expected time, I think we should have to have a mechanism which will help Indian banking IT systems, and that is how fintech comes to give out a very good/much expected experience on the niche problem statements. I think fintechs are really doing massively good in India and at the same time it is the responsibility of the banks to nurture or to queue education around regulation complex so that we have a win win situation and good products in a collaboration among banks and fintechs.
What are the top tech trends fintech industry is set to adopt in 2019?
I think coming back from 2017-2018, what we have seen the rise of payments and lending ecosystems hereon it will be around more on roboadvisory, personal finance management, use of AIML to process some of the products through fintech or through the banking app. I think rise of AIML along with the blockchain and IOT will be the next level target for the fintechs to take care of their services as to be on multiple channels. It could be on lending or could be on insurance side, could be on the banking side more over those fintechs would be successful, who would understand the customer expectations typically Swiggy or if you look at Zoho or if you look at some of the fintechs like flipkart, which has really evolved. What they have seen? They have seen where the customers are moving and they have used the technology along with the banks and they are giving the correct set of outputs. So, I think 2019, hereon fintechs should take care of new technologies like AIML, IOT, blockchain, use of big data into their offerings with the right set of problem statement for the Indian banking sector.
What are the major driving forces of the IoT in banking and financial services market?
IoT is quite new in the banking sector. IOT was always quite well established in the healthcare and multiple other domain. In banking I would say, IOT will start from customer, where customer will have a voice based or a alexa kind of a device at their home, where they would like to really give a command like, “let me know my balance?” or “do a particular booking of a hotel?”, those kind of financial services will come on IOT deviceslike voice assistance but at the same time at a branch where you can really have a some kind of a bigger devices which can be helpful to give the notification to the right customer at the right time whenever the customer is entering in the branch. So, I think it is a good time and you never know the way we adopted mobile as one of the radical change agents immediately in the next two to three years, we will find the rise of IOT everywhere. Variables would be in the tradition in the next two to three years. Every individual in the country will carry atleast two to three variables. He wants it or doesn’t want it, that’s how the trend would be. So, it is the responsibility of the banks also to give the banking experience on IOT or variable devices.
Could you tell us the impact of blockchain in the banking sector?
You have seen the impact of internet, you have seen the impact of databases and we can’t really survive without internet and database. Similarly, the need of trust, which is needed hereon in every type of application say, could be banking application, could be any of the marketplace. I think blockchain is going to mitigate that gap of trust and hereon after five years we shall not talk about blockchain but we shall talk about the uses of blockchain . Inheritably the way databases are a part of all of our applications, blockchain is going to be the integral part of each and every application. So, this is the right time for every bank to nurture their ecosystem to create a governance structure at their banks or to adopt some of the start-ups who are experimenting around the blockchainor to go to a very good blockchain company like the Infosys or IBM and keep on creating a conception for the right use-case. So, I think after five to ten years, we will not talk about blockchain, we will talk something around the use-cases of blockchain. So, this is the right time to nurture your people and skill set around blockchain to help start up fintechs or big companies to mature their technologies itself and I think regulation is very well supporting blockchain as a technology. Recently, they have come up with some of the guidelines also around blockchain and that would be a big boon for the Indian banking ecosystem.
How blockchain is going to disrupt the banking industry in the coming years?
It all depends on the use –cases which we will adapt. Today, in current banking system, there is a lot of operational overheads. You need a lot of people to handle some of the operational tasks like settlement and the reconciliation. Hereon, we will identify those use-cases where not much of smart work has happened or some kind of automation has not happened, on all these initiatives blockchain would be a gamechanger for the Indian banking. Say your banking system is without reconciliation or without man-in-middle or your KYC which is a centralized KYC among all the banks or you have some kind of a data where you can share that NPA kind of a data among all the banks or there could be many more possibilities where trust is required between two three systems where those use-cases will come in banking and certainly we shall save a lot of cost and we will have optimized operations and we will see customer satisfaction with a technology like blockchain.
How is digital platform making an impact in the finance ecosystems?
I think see, this is how the customer is expecting. Way back, we had some logos like Kodak or logos like Sony or Yahoo. They have not really seen how the customer isreally moving on a digital runway and hereon customer is expecting everything there and there itself because it is easy carrying a mobile phone. It means that if he wants to open a bank account in a bank, he wants his bank account to be open on his mobile phone itself. That’s the way to look at it. There could be many more services which he wants on a mobile or he wants there and there itself in his vicinity, so that’s an opportunity, I would say digital transformation is the key of success for every organization, you just need to understand which technology and which processes do you have the skill set to really revamp your organization with the help of digital transformation and what regulation is set. Do partner with certain start-up fintech industries, ultimately see what your consumer is asking for. It could be the internal consumer or could be the external consumer. I think that’s the way to look at it. Keep on revamping your current operational task current cost overheads on the digital platform. Say it could be anything which is a self servicing model at branch or it could be an account opening app for a customer or it could be a wealth advisory on the customers mobile phone. There are immense opportunities and these are limitless. For an organization they need to understand what is there for them to move into the next orbit. Understand, prioritize and move those processes which will help to get on the digital. The customer is really waiting for such type of digital applications.
What are the major challenges that fintech start-ups face in India today?
I think, see, in India we have quite a lot number of fintechs. We might be number two or number three as far as the quantity of fintechs are concerned but as far quality we might be around twenty or twenty five. That’s the way to look at it. What is that these fintechs are resolving as a problem statement. They need to resolve some kind of a unique problem statement. When we talk about financial inclusion as one subject, I think there are hardly a few number of fintechs which are focussing around financial inclusion, which is the need of India. If you really move from tier one cities or megacities to tier two or tier three ther you will find less of infrastructure, less of bandwidth of internet and there if you really bring out those kind of payment apps which are running in those limited bandwidth, that could be the innovation. I think most of the fintechs move around something like payments, lending and so on, they need to come up with very unique innovations around health-tech, education-tech, IOT-tech or could be fin-tech. So, that is how look around fintech should really come up with an experience that gives a liberty fro investors and banks to really invest on them and give a right set of output for the customers. So what we are lacking is full support from the government which is really now coming up. We need to have our own regulatory sandbox like Hong Kong ans Singapore. Recently, RBI has released the guidelines for our regulatory sandbox but there is a long way to go really. Will the sandbox be available for the fintechs for practising or testing out their products. I think if you really build the right set of open banking, regulatory sandbox with proper use-case depositories at a national level problem statement and something to do with the mentor pool or the available experts to nurture those fintechs. The combination would come out with a good amount of “India fintech forum” kind of a stuff which would be very helpful for the fintechs to succeed. That way we will say that we are among number two or three as per the quality of fintech is concerned.
Do you think the Indian market is ready for new innovative approaches in finance transactions?
Absolutely, I think the Indian market is quite mature enough and if you really look at Indian financial ecosystem, it is an example for other countries. People do come here and ask how UPI is being implemented how Aadhaar is being implemented. There are quite a lot of IP’s in the Indian ecosystem which is being implemented by the Indian companies. That is the way to really see how we would keep on doing quite a lot number of innovations, Hereon when we are in this mobile ecosystem or we are on this UPI ecosystem or we have so many number of channels to do the transactions that way to look at how we can do the data protection, There are many more things that will come in our way like how do we create a unique on-boarding application for all the banks, or how can we really create a fraud risk registry on a blockchain or how can we create health data on an AIML and blockchain. I think these are some unique problem statements only innovation can really meet those gaps and come up with the right kind of innovation for us. As a part of the digital India or a sustainable development guidelines I think it is quite a good opportunity for India to bring good amount of innovation so that innovation index of India could be in the top twenty in the next five years. Today we are at number fifty two, but I think with the help of fintechs, start-ups and government support, with the right amalgamation of emerging technologies certainly we would be able to surpass this milestone.
Is there any new initiative taken by DCB bank for the start-ups?
DCB bank has launched innovation carnival two years back. It is a programme for the start-ups academia and fintechcompanies corporates. It is a unique programme by DCB bank and none of the bank has really implemented physical hackathon plus virtual coverts for years together. Last two years we have seen quite a lot of output for the banks and as well as for the ecosystems. We have just collaborated all the pillars of innovation ecosystems together. We keep on doing these virtual coverts and physical hackathons. We did it in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Pune like cities. This year also we want to really target twenty plus cities we will meet academia, various students. We will meet quite a lot of start-ups. We will have certain programmes in these innovation carnival 2.0. We will start with Delhi, where we have Innovation carnival expo, where we want to showcase the top fifty start ups in the industry 4.0 area.
