LONDON: The City of London Corporation has unveiled plans for a major financial technology delegation to India, one of the world's largest fintech markets, to expand India-UK partnerships and collaborations in the field.
Led by the Lord Mayor of London, Charles Bowman, the delegation's five-day visit in the second week of October will involve UK companies looking to expand in India's fintech markets to explore the opportunities.
"India is now at the heart of the digital revolution, investing in new technologies and upskilling workers. The scale of opportunity is almost unfathomable, said the Lord Mayor, the leader of the City of London Corporation, the financial hub of the British capital.
"I am delighted to announce that I will be heading a delegation to Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi in October this year.I'm seeking to take with me companies that are interested in flying the flag for UK innovation," he said at an event entitled 'The Fintech Opportunity in India the UK perspective' at the Guildhall in London yesterday.
The event brought together leading fintech professionals and experts, including the City of London's India Advisory Council, to highlight the scope for UK fintech companies as part of the City of London's partnership with the Indian High Commission's Access India Programme.
There is a revolution that has taken place in India in the realm of digitisation.
This government has taken technology to an entirely different level.
In the last six years, there have been 1.064 billion Aadhar cards issued, 2.98 billion Aadhar authentications, about 330 million new accounts opened some of these statistics are quite phenomenal, said the Indian High Commissioner to UK, Y K Sinha.
The event also marked the unveiling of some of the key findings of a new joint City of London and PwC India research on the opportunities in the India-UK Fintech Payment Landscape.
"India is a massive opportunity but equally complex. It is important to appreciate the local dynamics", said Shiva Iyer, the Lead Author of the report.
Among some of the report's highlights, it emerged that the return of investments (ROI) in the Indian fintech space were at 30 per cent, much higher than the global average of 20 per cent, and that the digital banking and payment footprint is projected to grow at an even faster rate with the smartphone user base set to expand to around 500 million by 2020 in the country.