Fintech a Win-Win for India?

Fintech is one of the fastest-growing hot topics in business and technology. The emergence of Fintech in India brings digital transformation.

The fintech market in India

In India, Fintech emerges in multiple sectors like crowdfunding platforms, digital payment systems, stock trading, blockchain, and cryptocurrency.

As of March 2020, India had an adoption rate of 87 percent, compared to the global average of 64 percent. Currently, the fintech market is valued at $31 billion and is expected to grow to $84 billion by 2025, a compounded annual growth rate of 22 percent.

In the country, most fintech companies have their headquarters in Bengaluru and Mumbai as they are the country's technology and financial hubs and it represents 42% of the market.

Some of the main reasons behind the exponential growth include:

• Capital market and investment management become a necessity. This helps the people and businesses on how to save, spend, invest, and trade.
  

• The increased usage of the internet and smartphones has brought the world to a fingertip. Growing along with it, mobile wallets come into play, a virtual wallet that allows the user to make small and in-store payments with ease.
  

• Fintech also provides fast online loans and lending, allowing the unbanked, rural and small/micro-business to grow.
  

• Advancement in technologies like

  1. Cloud technology: Helps the finance sector by making it flexible and available anytime / anywhere. Moreover, it reduces operational costs, increases efficiency, and provides analysis systems.
     

  2. Blockchain: Security is of utmost importance since money is involved.
     

  3. The use of NLP Based Chatbots makes customer service cost-efficient and available 24x7. By utilizing NLP-based chatbots companies have the option to react to client issues and address them conveniently.
     

  4. Artificial Intelligence - AI is the backbone of the fintech industry. It gives analyzed information, protects and facilitates transactions, and lastly creates customer-focused products.

• Open banking - allows banks to electronically share financial information to third parties by the use of APIs, improving services, security, popularity, and demand.

These advances allow various new businesses to grow with the provision of technology. This provides businesses/individuals to connect and expand to the world outside the box. Here are some of the leading and most interesting Fintech Companies in India

1. Paytm Paytm is India's leading and most popular financial services company that offers payments & financial solutions to consumers, offline merchants, and online platforms. Paytm has a Gross Merchant Volume(GMV) of Rs 1,46,900 crore. It recently also received the Best Digital Service Payments Bank - April-30-2021.
   

2. Groww It is a fast-growing technology-oriented investment platform that allows you to invest in mutual funds and stocks. Groww is quite popular on social media because the company focuses mainly on marketing through leading finance influencers. The company has managed to raise over $140 million as of April 2021, at a valuation of $1 billion.
   

3. MobiKwik MobiKwik is an Indian-based digital wallet company founded in 2009. MobiKwik started as a digital wallet but now offers financial services such as credit, insurance, and gold loans. The net revenue of MobiKwik was about nearly four billion Indian rupees in the fiscal year 2020.
   

4. PhonePe PhonePe is an Indian digital payments and financial services company. It is a popular and India's leading payments platform with 314 million registered users and 46 percent of the market share for UPI payments.PhonePe carried 292.71 million transactions worth Rs. 2,62,565.88 crores in June 2021. PhonePe also wins the best mobile payment product/service category and the technology category at IAMAI India digital awards.

With new uprising technologies and inflation of the financial market, India is finally crypto-ready. New trends bring a boom in the sector of cryptocurrency making India ranked 11th in terms of its adoption.

This gives a good reason to celebrate but in this ocean of happiness arrives a wave of concern. The legality of cryptocurrency in India is still on the fence and there are still many risks involved however, investors are still sailing in this ship as it promises high profits. This new craze has brought many apps.

Here is a list of a few trusted and best trading apps.

WazirX App - is among the most popular cryptocurrency apps in India. You may have seen it on social media. This app lets you invest using INR, US dollar, BTC, and even P2P.

Additionally, it also has a coin called WRX which can be bought using INR.

CoinDCX - is India's largest and safest cryptocurrency exchange. It lets you buy or sell in up to 200+ trade coins and the interesting thing is the whole setup process has been simplified using a one-time password (OTP).

CoinSwitch Kuber - another app that gained popularity. It lets you trade in up to 100+ cryptos and promises the best trading rates in the market.

Unocoin App - is known for its simple user interface and compatibility with many cryptocurrencies. The app also includes a schedule sale feature that lets you auto-sell from the profile tab.

What does Fintech hold for the future of India?

India is a widely diversified and populated country, about one-eighth of the population remains underbanked, underserved, and subject to a constantly changing regulatory environment. These are the main reasons the nation's digital payment landscape and unsolved challenges are no easy hurdles to overcome. Here fintech comes as a blessing, it provides the support to transform India's financial and digital sector.