MUMBAI, May 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
Fintech Storm India Summit - 12-13 May 2016, Mumbai, Hotel St.Regis
The Fintech Storm India Summit held on 12-13 May at The St. Regis, Mumbai attracted 200+ stakeholders from RBI, Banks, Technology firms, startups, VCs and Blockchain enthusiasts. The summit was hosted by Genius Incubator Ltd., UK, led by CEO Ms. Arifa Khan. The summit is a recurring Annual Series and part of the firm's strategic forays into Indian Banking, Payments & Fintech space. Ms Khan believes Blockchain is the next big opportunity and is open to institutional investments in her new venture, which aims to build international blockchain capabilities to reinvent the provision of banking and financial services in India.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160517/10146299 )
The summit was inaugurated by Mr. A.P. Hota, CEO, NPCI. NPCI plays a key role in Jan Dhan Yojana, by issuing the domestic payment card Rupay which gained 35% market share within 3 years of its launch, and also recently announced Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to make payments faster, easier.
A.P.Hota announced at the Summit that NPCI will work together with Fintech Storm as a partner, on Blockchain research for Indian banks.
Payment Banks Reliance Jio and Fino Paytech participated at the summit. RBI is displaying a more agile approach to licensing on tap&go, and has shown openness to new Fintech innovations.
Several officers from RBI attended the summit on both days and appreciated the Blockchain Symposium.
H. Srikrishnan, CEO of Reliance Jio Payments Bank, speaking at the summit in an interview to Narayan Madhavan on the differentiation of Payment Banks, said "New payment banks are targeting convenience and experience of the customer, but the backend will be powered by collaboration with other banks. Apple music made it easy to listen to music - collaborating with composers, producers, contracts and being license agnostic. Likewise, ease of access to financial services is needed."
Arifa Khan, addressing the summit on the global disruption heralded by Blockchain said "It is rare that technologies with potential of this magnitude come about in the history of humankind, and we are fortunate to be living in the great times of the smart phone, IOT, Blockchain. The face of Banking and Finance is about to change irrecognisably. Wall Street does not want to be left out of this and is doing its best to reserve a ring-side seat."
Ms Arifa Khan debuted as a Blockchain expert at Europe-India Conclave - 17 Dec 2015 in Delhi, which was presided over by Shri Nitin Gadkari. Ms Khan also advises Ministry of Road Transport, Shipping on ECB.
In a world full of mistrust, Blockchain establishes trust between counterparties to a transaction without the need for intermediaries. The distributed ledger is decentralized, tamper proof, immutable and consensus-based database. There are several use-cases across the economy as a whole - p2p payments, remittances, notary and stamping, proof of ownership, e-healthcare, stock exchanges, testing and certification, e-voting etc. Ms Khan declared her plans to play a leading role in bringing Blockchain to Indian masses. "Regulatory approval is key to achieve scale in fintech platforms, so we are educating the regulators early on. We will bring together banks, policy makers, regulators, NPCI, innovators, startups and investors to effect key changes in the landscape. These are exciting times indeed!" continued Ms. Khan.
Narayanan Madhavan quizzed Ms Arifa Khan on stage on why the VC community should be interested in Blockchain and what the drawbacks were for its mass acceptance. Ms Khan shed light on technological constraints of Blockchain as well as the current experimentation phase. He uttered his verdict 'Blockchain is revolutionary'!
ISBM President Pramod Kumar said - "Blockchain will open up a new academic field with corporate training possibilities. India can become a source of trained Blockchain talent. We will explore opportunities with Fintech Storm."
French academic Marc Pilkington who co-hosted the Blockchain Workshop with Ms Khan said it is exciting for him to connect France and India and thanked Fintech Storm for giving him the opportunity to be Research Partner.
Shailesh Pandey of FINO Paytech speaking on efficient delivery of last mile service said "Interoperability between banks, achievable through UPI is going to be the game-changer in money transfers similar to data and voice traffic being agnostic of telecom service provider. Digibank by DBS is an example of mobile-only bank leveraging e-KYC."
Five largest banks in India namely SBI, ICICI, HDFC, Axis, Kotak today constitute 92% of total transactions.
Mr.Tamal Bandhopadhyaya - of Mint interviewed Mr. A.P. Hota and Subhrangshu Neogi, Religare. Speaking on financial inclusion and empowering the customer, Mr A.P.Hota, the definitive authority on Indian payments industry said "Basic financial services like save, pay, borrow, earn, insure and invest are not understood clearly in Tier 2 and 3 cities. Entire decision journey of the customer is changing and mobile and social are integral part of it. UPI enables Real Time Collect which was not possible by the previous protocols like IMPS, NEFT etc. There are many use-cases of UPI like landlord placing a pull request of funds from tenants, parents sending pocket money to children, migrant labourers sending money back home etc."
Other notable talks were by Imrana Khera - USAID, Arun Diaz, Avishkaar on financial inclusion and TCM Sundaram of IDG on 2-sided Marketplaces, Venky Hariharan - ISPRIT on creating soft infrastructure in India.
Ms Khan announced Europe-India Conclave in Nov 2016 in New Delhi & London Summit 14 July 2016. The Blockchain Symposium elicited positive interest from the audience, which included RBI. The summit invited consultations with NPCI, Banks, FIs, RBI and the industry. NPCI looks forward to taking strides together in this nascent space, with Fintech Storm.
The summit was supported by Supporting Partners: NPCI, Network18, PR Newswire, Money Control, Majestic MRSS, Nasscom 10000 Startups, 91Springboard, Indian Startups, e-cell IIT Mumbai, Innov8, 91 Springboard, Banking Frontiers.
About Genius Incubator Ltd.
Genius Incubator Ltd, UK is an advisory firm that advises corporates and Government of India on capital raising and also owns "Fintech Storm" brand - the platform for roundtables and debates on fintech disruption.
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http://fintechstormindia.com
http://FintechStorm.com
http://Facebook.com/fintechstorm
http://meetup.com/mobile-payments
http://meetup.com/destinationindia
Twitter: @fintechstorm
Media Contact:
Ms Arifa Khan, Managing Director
+44-7920030807 ,+91-9619703635
Genius Incubator Ltd.
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