New Delhi : “Technology-led growth will be where India will be most distinctive and different from the rest of the world, including the developed nations,’’ Dr Krishnamurthy V Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, Government of India said, adding that the government is giving a major push and is creating digital infrastructure as a public good.
He said that private sector is unwilling to create physical public goods, and even when they do, they tend to monopolise it and make it very expensive, which becomes inaccessible for the common man. “That is why creating the digital infrastructure for India is so important,’’ he added.
Underscoring the importance of personal data on financial transactions like that present with an account aggregator, he pointed out, can be used by banks and other financial institutions to give credit to the unbanked and also help in the labour market, by giving certification based on his/ her past records. It allows financial institutions to understand whether a person pays back his loans in time or his credit history.
This will allow the financial sector to give credit to those who have been out of the credit market for the past 75 years and help in pushing the GDP growth in the country. It will also bring in lot of people in the organised labour market because of the use of data. “So, there are huge opportunities for data as a public good. That is what we have invested in India. It can be a great disrupter,” he added. The same data can be used to increase mutual fund, insurance penetration in the country
He also emphasised the need to invest and use data- intensive modelling among banks and financial institutions not just for retail lending but also to widen the scope to include SME lending, corporate lending and large ticket lending. By joining hands with the banks, they can become far more profitable. He urged banks and financial institutions either to build these data-analytical model themselves or join hands with fintech companies to provide credit to the retail sector.
He also talked about ethical wealth creation for the public sector and not just wealth creation to become long-term, sustainable players. The private sector should focus on sustainable capitalism, he added.
Talking on technology-based growth, Shri P Vasudevan, Chief General Manager, Payments and Settlement Systems, Reserve Bank of India, said that the easy access to technology is driving growth like never before. “In the last 15 months, we have witnessed 85% growth in daily transactions with 185 million transactions per day from 100 million transactions. If compared with the five-year ago figure, there’s an eight-fold increase from 23 million transactions per day, which is remarkable.”
The Global FinTech Fest, organised by Fintech Convergence Council (FCC) and Payments Council of India (PCI), of Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The three-day conference was attended by about 26,000 delegates from across the country.
