Reserve Bank governor Sanjay Malhotra as asked fintech players to design products which are easy-to-use and accessible to all for helping the nation achieve more financial inclusion.
Addressing the global fintech summit here on Wednesday, the bureaucrat-turned central banker also flagged the issue of growing digital frauds and made a strong case for making efforts to curb the menace.
“Design products and services that are easy to use, accessible for all, with assistive technologies, ensuring that the vulnerable groups such as the senior citizens, individuals with limited digital literacy and the specially-abled are not left behind,” Malhotra said.
Observing that the country has a vibrant fintech ecosystem and the fintech industry has made it possible to deliver financial services at scale and affordable cost, he said, the country has close to 10,000 fintechs operational now and have attracted over $40 billion of investments in the past decade. Many reports say this to going to hit $100 billion by 2030.
The governor also said proposed unified lending interface (ULI) aims to enable use of data for lenders to build alternative credit model as UPI has done in payment space.
Urging fintechs to use data responsibly for deeper inclusion, the governor said the country’s fintech revolution has entered a new phase where responsible use of data will be key to deepening inclusion and driving sustainable growth.
The governor said the country’s fintech sector owes much of its success to the strong foundation of the digital public infrastructure (DPI). “The DPI underpins our digital transformation over the last decade,” said Malhotra, noting that the combination of Aadhaar, the unified payments interface (UPI), and the data layer has enabled us to become a global leader in digital finance.
He noted that UPI now handles over 500 million transactions daily, accounting for almost half of global real-time payment volumes.
Outlining the way forward, the governor said the next phase of fintech development should focus on data aggregation, the digital rupee, artificial intelligence, and combating digital fraud. “The account aggregator framework is empowering individuals to share their financial data safely with regulated entities,” he said, noting that it already serves 160 million accounts.
“RBI is now working to improve customer onboarding, strengthen data security, and increase transparency in consent management and data sharing,” he added.
