Agenda
| 4:00 PM-4:05 PM | Welcome remarks: Professor Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General, RIS, New Delhi |
| 4:05 PM-4:20 PM | Keynote Address: Mr. T Rabi Shankar, Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai |
| 4:20 PM-5:00 PM | Panel Discussion: Chair: Prof. K.J. Joseph, Director, Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, Thiruvananthapuram Panelists: 1) Professor B.V. Phani, Head of Department and Professor of Finance, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, IIT Kanpur 2) Professor Tannkom Arun, Director, Centre for Accountability and Global Development (CAGD), University of Essex, UK |
| 5:00 PM- 5:15 PM | Q&A |
| 5:15 PM- 5:20 PM | Vote of Thanks: Dr. Priyadarshi Dash, Associate Professor, RIS, New Delhi |
7 key takeaways from the session:
- The Fintech adoption rate in India is 87% compared to 64% globally and the companies are poised to become three times of what they are today in the next five years. It was valued to be roughly around 2 Lakh crore rupees in 2019 and is expected to increase to roughly around 6 Lakh crore rupees by 2025.
- Fintech reduces the cost of financial intermediation, according to quantitative research the cost of financial intermediary has been stagnant till the 2007-09 crisis and post that has started to fall rapidly.
- Competitive threats to the bank do not come through fintech but from other banks that leverage fintech better, where innovation and technology are the key drivers of growth in fintech.
- Banks bridge gaps in distance and time between the savers and the borrowers, the gap in distance occurs when a saver and a borrower do not know each other or for example, they live in different cities so how do they communicate? The gap in time occurs when the borrower needs money after a month, but the saver has the money now, so there is also a time mismatch. So, when a bank keeps itself as an intermediary this gap is filled, and the banks end up providing liquidity.
- Technology enables speed and efficiency in the system, but it cannot create this liquidity as it does not have the power to create money, which essentially the banks have. Moreover, one must also remember that while technology can help in managing the risk, it cannot take a risk decision for a person or an institution.
- New technologies undoubtedly have the potential to reshape the banks and other institutions but for the betterment of the population, regulation has a bigger role to play.
- Regulators must make sure that they are able to identify the big tech players in the financial markets and have a set of governing rules for them.
