Thought leaders and decision makers from the fintech industry in the India recently gathered at the Taj West End Hotel in Bengaluru for The Bengaluru Fintech Summit.

Fintech Storm hosted a landmark Fintech Conference-'Bengaluru Fintech Summit' on 30th and 31st May 2019 in Bengaluru. The 2 day summit brought together 175+ people which includes decision makers and innovators from Banking, Financial Services, Fintech ecosystem, startups and investor community, and the policy makers from Govt. of India. 

Organized by Fintech Storm, the summit aimed to present movers and shakers who are breaking barriers to financial access in the India and the rest of the world.

Over 175+ participants from fintech and digital sectors were welcomed by Arifa Khan, CEO of Himalaya Capital Exchange, to a whole day of sessions focusing on financial inclusiveness, payments, mobile, retail, marketing and data, as well as the topic that most people are curious about—blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The HCX team would like to thank all attendees, speakers, sponsors, partners, and oter summit stakeholders for contributing to the success of the show.

The summit theme was “Paving way for India’s tech leadership in the fourth industrial revolution” and the event did full justice to its vision. The summit was received extremely positively by the 175 attendees who opined that this was the first such summit in Bangalore which focused on emerging technologies.

This summit served as the gateway for the fintech community in Bengaluru to learn more about the use of blockchain and cryptocurrencies such as the IPOs, STOs. Arifa Khan, CEO of Himalaya Capital Exchange, Himalayalabs, Fintech Storm opened the sessions with her winning presentation on Future of Fintech. Arifa explained the reasons how fintech and crypto are revolutionizing the finance sector.  

R.Vivekanand, TCS delivered a keynote on "Seismic shifts in capital markets with the new token paradigm" and the following joint Q&A session by R.Vivekanand and Arifa Khan regarding TCS-HCX joint efforts in the capital markets space.

The special session on collaboration of Tata Consultancy Services and Himalaya Capital Exchange on building a next generation tokenised Securities platform was the highlight of the day. R. Vivekanand of Tata Consultancy Services made the announcement, and the session was followed by a very in depth Q&A by R. Vivekanand and Arifa Khan, who answered questions from the audience on the new token paradigm and how it is going to change the capital markets landscape.

Himalaya Capital Exchange (HCX) is a revolutionary digital platform that enables entrepreneurs to automate IPOs without having to mandate investment banks or pay fees. In light of SEBI’s recent announcement that the Indian regulator is going to make the rules of startups listing easer, this development by HCX & TCS is significant.

In a panel, Ankit Ratan, Signzy, Jimmy H Padia, Floatbot, and Saru Tumuluri, Khosla Labs discussed as to what type of changes and risks AI technology will give rise to in the financial sector, touching on several use cases of AI and addressing current challenges in big data usage. The panelists initiated the discussion with several use-cases of AI in the financial sector and a central bank, such as “macro-economic analysis and monitoring of the financial system” and “creation of an artificial financial market to consider the impact of regulation to the market.”

They pointed out that India is seeing a rise in startups, because of the new advent age of co-working spaces, and students are also seeking employment with startups and growing with them, hence their talents are helping startups become unicorns. A developer that specializes in AI described about its service that automatically and appropriately responds to online inquiries from customers with deeplearning. On top of that, regarding the future usage of AI in the financial industry, they envisaged that “simple, routine processing would be automated and people would not be involved in such processes.” They added a view that AI would rather create new areas of jobs for people.

“No serious aspiring tech uicorn can ignore India today due to its sheer consumer base and market power.” said Mr Rahul Bhasin, Managing Partner, Barings Pvt Equity India. He spoke about traditional compliance tool for remittance, explaining this technology has helped on reducing costs and faster disbursements of funds. He spoke on the importance of businesses staying connected to their consumers. He stated that, “As companies grow they focus more on building internal structure than on customers’ needs”. He backed this up by pointing out Netflix, Zomato, Swiggy, OYO, uber who are constantly monitoring its consumers action, using algorithms, and ensuring that consumers will stay engaged on the apps.

On a panel discussion, Mr. Gokul Alex, PWC to Mr. Vikram Venkateshwarsam, Deloitte, discussed about rapid moment of businesses to the age of digitalization, with the support of the government. Mr. Vikram Venkateshwarsam, Deloitte, says that our banks are at par with the world because RBI mentors them and ensures they do not lag behind. The discussion moved towards the success of Paytm, and they credit it the efforts of the company being able to address a fundamental need, that is, with the age of digitalization consumers want to go cashless, and also want increased convenience in transactions. The panel continued to discuss about the role of blockchain in cashfree environment and in the era of digitalization.

The legal industry is widely seen to be conservative and traditional, with Law Technology Today noting that "in 50 years, the customer experience at most law firms has barely changed". Mr. B C Thiruvengadam, Thiru and Thiru, says that companies invest less than 0.2% in legal tech, because of the stereotypes that exist around them. On the hot topic about artificial intelligence replacing lawyers, he says, it is a big no and a small yes. Reasons for this include the fact law firms face weaker cost-cutting incentives than other professions and are seen to be risk averse. To add on, Mr Jaideep Reddy, points out how lawyers are no longer seen as a gatekeepers to law, and law has become accessible to everyone as everything else is available on internet, but it is not replacement to having a lawyer because amendments to regulations are fickle.

Up next, Mr. Venkat Raju, Global Connect, goes on to share that investment banks are seen as “villains” and companies like Uber and Airbnb who are actually money hogging middlemen are ironically seen as “heroes”; be careful he said, today’s heroes can become tomorrow’s villains. He gave us insights about how our mentality might be blinding us. He then points out the contrivance of JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, in September 2017 had originally called Bitcoin a “fraud”, are now rolling out the first US bank-backed cryptocurrency to transform payments business, he very wisely termed this a bait and switch case.

“Call tracking is to track a phone number and to record the information about the call, which is used to measure the impact of marketing efforts on lead generation and sales.” stated Paul Mathews, Founder and CEO Nethram LLC. He gave a demo on Nethram LLC which is a promising name in the field of Telecommunications and Cloud Computing. He explained it by giving an example of Call tracking system.

Arifa Khan, Founder of Fintech Storm and CEO Himalaya Capital Exchange, concluded the summit with a talk on tokenisation and its enormous potential across multiple industries including securities and capital markets. she reassured that we are no longer in the skeptical stage in the cryptocurrency market, we are now at the acceptance stage. Risk-loving financial institutions are openly embracing this technology and many more are seen to follow them. The investment and growth are on the rise and it is predicted that cryptocurrency will take the market by a storm.

On a final thought, by attending the event, I felt that Though, the financial industry is very much thrilled about blockchain, the technology might take a few more years to become a mainstream financial model. Like any other emerging technology- Blockchain poses certain challenges that need to be addressed to fully utilize its potential in the financial services industry.

Although the Blockchain technology is still in the developing phase, the possibilities are still being explored. It is important to research and keep moving with the new innovations to make the best use of this technology and fully transform our financial processes in our day-to-day life.

Thus, India needs an effective solution to resolve major issues including middlemen intervention, data breaches, corruption, and tampering of financial ledgers. However, blockchain as an emerging superpower seems to be the most reliable solution. The fresh developments in blockchain technology and the outlook of the leaders and government on the blockchain are in favor of India capitalizing on the technology.