Electronics Ministry, TN govt to jointly build start-up fintech centre

Centre will be set up under STPI's present incubation programme TechNEST, will function in a two-tier mechanism for monitoring and operations

Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) is setting up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for FinTech at Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Chennai, in association with the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT), Govt of Tamil Nadu to support start-ups in the sector. The Tamil Nadu Government has issued an Order to support the initiative and allocated it share of funds to go ahead with the Rs 23-crore project.

The objective of the CoE is to give start-ups access to facility, technology, mentorship and support to help them kickstart their business in the area of FinTech. The proposed model includes identifying startups who have potential to create disruptive products, provide business and organizational support in the start-up phase and select startups based on defined set of criteria to enter agreement. In addition they also get access to financial resources, mentoring and technical support by industry partners, payment gateways and resources, networking activities, marketing, etc.,

The centre will be set up under STPI's present Incubation Program TechNEST and will function in a two-tier mechanism (Leadership Council and Project Management Group) for monitoring and operations. The Leadership Council, consisting of members from the industry, academia, MeitY, ELCOT, STPI, Tamil Nadu government and other stakeholders of TechNEST, will overview the implementation. 

A Project Management Group (PMG) with a Chief Mentor, Chief Executive Officers and representatives of all stakeholders has been constituted. The Project Management Group (PMG), with Arun Jain as the Chief Mentor, will be responsible for overall execution, monitoring, management and success of this program. 

Jain, who is the CMD of Intellect Design Arena Limited said, “The coming together of some of the reputed organisations like National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), Unique Identification Authority of India, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, TiE Chennai, YES Bank, Paypal, Pontaq, HSBC and other partners is a great opportunity for sharing best practices and building a viable ecosystem at a national level.”

Sanjay Tyagi, director, STPI said that the CoE is being set up with the objective of making Tamil Nadu a leader in Financial Technology, attract Research and Development and downstream investment in the State, thereby creating employment opportunities.