What will the Fintech opportunity in India transform into -Vipul Sharma

Imagine an India where financial services are seamless, always available and digital. For many salaried customers in tier-1 and tier-2 cities, this is already a reality. For Indians earning more than Rs 10 lakhs a year, credit cards, accounts, insurance policies, mutual funds, loans and shares are available at the click of a button. Usually digital. But this is less than a couple of million people in India.

The vast majority – over 95 percent – ​​live in a completely different environment where each of these financial services is difficult to access. The opportunity to transform the experience of this 95 percent will radically change business models, increase digital access and build extremely large companies that serving over 100 million customers. When income per capita increases, I see the following changes in behavior and consumption over the next ten years.

1. We will see a giant middle class with massive ambitions – Indians want to educate their children in better schools, travel out of state and out of the country, buy houses and spend more on cars, better food and clothes. This creates a huge demand and our consumption will increase. India’s high savings rate will go down and our credit to GDP ratio will go up.

2. Go digital – Almost everyone uses UPI – it’s ubiquitous and easy. The technology allows non-digital native customers to access payment solutions on the back of its simplicity. Our whole approach to banking will move beyond branches and people, to apps and simple products. For this to happen, regulators will help companies experiment more. In a large country like India, there is no room for a single loan, account or mutual fund. The technology allows adaptation to the extreme. We want to see it happen.

3. Business Banking will undergo a transformation – SMEs and small businesses are the cornerstones of large developed economies. All the consumption of the middle class must be driven by manufacturers who create in India – from potato chips to silicon chips. Traders will mushroom as demand will draw products to every corner of the country, and cities the size of countries will appear. These will not only result in increased access to finance, but massive adaptation. We will see the growth of segment-specific decacorns – FinTechs for manufacturers, for traders, for restaurants, for professionals like doctors and CAs – each is a different business and has unique requirements. We want FinTechs that satisfy every requirement

4. Agri becomes big ‒ Subsistence farming will cease. As more people move to cities, farm consolidation will occur, automation will occur, and massive investment will be needed to fuel the better quality products we will demand. Organic, healthy, healthy. Our farms will be bigger, better managed and will use solar and wind power on a massive scale. Fintech’s catering to the producers in the country will see better supply chains, higher predictability of receivables, greater comfort in land ownership and better margins in agri.

We will export more too, leading to opportunities for FinTechs in cross-border agricultural trade and newer, more sophisticated marketplaces will emerge.

5. Cities will come closer – our infrastructure is undergoing a quiet transformation. Imagine reaching Delhi from Jaipur in 30 minutes. This will happen. It suddenly makes trade and people movement significantly faster – fueling and allowing finance to have higher predictability, shorter supply chain losses and faster time to market. This, in turn, will help Indians better access finance, as information on current and future income will improve.

Now imagine all of this happening together and the force multiplier this adds to our country and people. Finance will change – it will become faster, accessible, simple and customized.