CHENNAI: Making digital financial services accessible to persons with disabilities (PwDs) is emerging as a key area of research under the renewed fintech collaboration between IIT-Madras and Computer Age Management Services (CAMS).
Research is under way through the CAMS IIT Madras FinTech Innovation Lab (CIFIL) to examine how financial applications and authentication systems can be designed so that disabled people, particularly the visually impaired, are not excluded from the expanding digital financial ecosystem, CAMS MD Anuj Kumar told TNIE on Wednesday.
“We want them (PwDs) to be our customers, but if we don’t provide apps or websites that they can use, they will not be able to participate,” he said.
CAMS is working on the issue as part of the expanded research agenda of CIFIL, which was established in 2022 by IIT-Madras and CAMS under the company’s CSR initiatives.
The collaboration, formalised through a new MoU signed on the IIT-Madras campus on Wednesday, will expand CIFIL’s work into AI in financial services, blockchain, cybersecurity, digital lending, and data analytics, among others.
“CAMS plans to invest another `4 crore in the next term as part of the partnership,” Kumar said. The next phase of CIFIL will also examine unclaimed financial assets across sectors. Regulators have built utilities to help identify and claim them, he added.
IIT-M Director V Kamakoti said the partnership could accelerate the development of cutting-edge fintech solutions for India’s financial ecosystem.