Role of fintech gaining importance in financial services: experts

Acknowledging the growing significance of fintech in delivering financial services, experts from banks, stock exchanges and government officials on Saturday said the role of these technologies are getting stronger.

"Fintech is growing rapidly and the state (West Bengal) also recognises this. We want fintech hub within the financial hub at Rajarhat (in Kolkata). We are also working for creating right manpower to support this," said State IT & Electronics Secretary Debasish Sen.

He also urged upon the fintech community to reach out to the unbanked sector and the last segment of the society to ensure financial inclusion, adding that the progress made in Aadhaar, GST and digital money was unparallel in the world.

The state government is focussed on harnessing emerging technologies like cryptocurrencies, bitcoin and blockchain, Sen said at the MCCI Fintech Forum 2018.

Pointing out the huge role of fintech sector in scrutiny of application, loan sanction, monitoring and loan recovery, United Bank of India MD and CEO Pawan Kumar Bajaj noted that "without fintech, the kind of volumes that we are looking at, is not possible".

He said they had taken help of a fintech company to lend and monitor small loans on behalf of the lender and received "excellent results".

Sen referred to a study made by McKinsey, which mentioned that the centre of gravity for the financial world would shift towards Asia from US and Europe.

Bombay Stock Exchange MD and CEO Ashish Kumar Chauhan said the role of fintech was huge in managing growing volumes.

--IANS

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