Indian financial sector undergoing its 'Whatsapp' moment: Nilekani

The Indian financial services sector is witnessing its 'Whatsapp' disruption just like the short messaging service field of mobile phone industry underwent in 2009, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani said on Friday.

"No incumbent company with billions of dollars and the smartest people could do what Whatsapp did to messaging," said Nilekani drawing an analogy from the current disruption striking the Indian financial sector.

He was speaking at The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Leapfrog summit here.

The former UIDAI chief said India was moving toward a cashless transaction mechanism and toward a more digital transaction mode with the emergence of services like Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), mobile wallets, direct cash transfers, payments banks and others.

He said in Q1 2015, electronic clearing of cheques caught up with paper based cheques in his keynote address at the TiE Leapfrog.

"IMPS transactions exceeded money orders within three years of launching while money order service was launched in 1880. IMPS will overtake debit and credit card payments," added the chief advisor of TiE Leapfrog.

Nilekani praised the RBI for granting licences to 11 payments banks which will propel financial inclusion in India.

The man behind the Aadhaar card project said: "Aadhaar enrollment is at 900 million currently, it will cross the one billion mark by March 2106."

No place other than India has Aadhaar card-like identification system which is aimed at revolutionising authentication in India.

Nilekani said the current impossibility of person to person (P2P) monetary transactions will be solved soon when National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) rolls out the unified payment interface (UPI).

The current person to merchant (P2M) transaction ability will evolve to a P2P transaction mechanism paving the way for any two random individuals to transfer money instantly, added Nilekani.

"Every function in a bank can be done on the phone very soon," added Nilekani.