Prime Minister dream of Atmanirbhar Bharat can be fulfilled by fintech : Union Minister
CHANDIGARH: Prime Minister dream of Atmanirbhar Bharat can be fulfilled by fintech said by Chief Guest Shri Sanjay Dhotre, Union Minister of State for Education, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India today at CII Conference on Cashless and Digital economy. He opined that fintech should focus for long term and future considering finance should reach each and every person of India through technology and inclusion to be made priority. He emphasize on making financial transaction simple and easy going. He said that during COVID 19, Digital Payments played an instrumental role during this pandemic and cash transfer under PM Garib Kalyan scheme was possible due to digital payment infra.
In his Keynote Address, Mr Abhimanyu Munjal, Deputy Chairman, CII (Northern Region) and Joint Managing Director & CEO, Hero FinCorp Ltd said that digital economy is the most important gateway for innovation, competitiveness and growth in the country. He added that world is very dynamic and is continuously changing today and one of the fundamental drivers of change is digital transformation. He said that post demonetization the growth of digital payment infrastructure was phenomenal and continuously a boon for all during this pandemic.
In his welcome address, Mr Ashutosh Chadha, Conference Chairman and Vice President & Head South Asia, Public Policy & Government Affairs Mastercard said that true Digital inclusion will only be seen if every single citizen merchant and establishment is seamlessly and frictionlessly able to adopt to digital commerce. This requires creating a safe secure payment ecosystem, providing users with multiple interoperable solutions and ensuring there is no concentration risk said by Mr Chadha.
Dr Rishi Mohan Bhatnagar, President, Aeris Communications in his addresssaid that empowering Rural India with digital payments models will drive huge transparency in financial transactions, help in curtailing parallel economy & greatly improve ease of business. Indian FinTech’s have a huge role to play here he added. We have second largest number of start-ups in the world and Indian entrepreneurs are capable to lead & transform digital payments in rural economy and further strengthening Atmnirbhar Bharat said by Dr Bhatnagar.
In his theme address, Mr Abhishant Pant, Founder, The Fintech Meetup said that India is one of the youngest country in the world. He added that the advantage of youth is best utilised when a curious mind is rightfully involved in enterprise creation. Startups therefore represent an interesting way to channelise this energy in a way that it leads to creation of Atmanirbhar Bharat said by Mr Pant. He said that India is a dominant player in Fintech startup category and it is extremely important that this lead is further accelerated. He further appreciated CII conference as a great step in that direction of bringing all relevant stakeholders together.
Speaking at the Conference, Mr Anirban Mukherjee, Chief Executive Officer, PayU India said India has a domestically developed payments infrastructure that is world class and we are hoping to further develop it together with our ecosystem partners. Our core focus continues to be digitization of all merchants in the country and building a broader fintech ecosystem he added.
Mr Ravi Rajagopalan, Managing Director & CEO, Empays Payment Systems India in his address said that COVID 19 has completely changed the world. He also said that health and safety, and localisation of purchase behaviour are the new normal. The big shift that has taken place towards digital behaviour in the last three months is probably the only silver lining to emerge in an otherwise challenging landscape said by Mr Rajagopalan. The event marked the presence of experts from Airtel Payments, Bharatpe, Fino Payments, Phonepe, SWIFT, BharatPe and others and attended by over 150 participants.