PM Narendra Modi to address Global Fintech Fest on August 30 in Mumbai

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to join the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) on August 30.

The Prime Minister will attend the conference in person, according to three people close to the development.

The event will also have representation from the country’s top regulators, including Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das and Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chief Madhabi Puri Buch.

The GFF is an annual fintech conference, and this year it is scheduled between August 28 and 30.

It will host over 800 speakers across more than 350 sessions, expecting a footfall of over 80,000 participants.

The three-day event comes at a time when the fintech sector, spanning areas such as digital payments, lending, insurance, and wealth management, continues to expand in the country.

RBI Governor Das will address the event on August 28, with Sebi chief Buch joining the event the following day.

The event will host fintech startups, banking executives, regulators, and global financial services participants.

The conference comes on the back of growth in the number of fintech companies in the country.

India has around 10,244 fintech entities, making it the third largest in the world, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.

India’s flagship real-time payments system, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), has reached a milestone this year.

The payments system, run on the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) rails, has clocked 55.66 billion transactions worth Rs 80.79 trillion in the current financial year (FY25).

In FY24, UPI surpassed 100 billion transactions for the first time, ending the year at 131 billion, compared to 84 billion in FY23.

In the first half of 2024, funding to fintech firms was pegged at $795 million, compared to $1.93 billion during the same period last year, according to data from market intelligence platform Tracxn.