Nandan Nilekani says Finternet to go live in 2026 using AI, tokenisation

Infosys co-founder says India's next digital public infrastructure will unify tokenised assets such as land, property, and bonds under a regulatory framework

Finternet, an ongoing project in India’s digital public infrastructure, is expected to go live in 2026 with a focus on utilising technologies such as tokenisation of assets and artificial intelligence (AI), Infosys co-founder and chairperson Nandan Nilekani, said.

 

The new financial system in the form of finternet is expected to bring assets such as land, property, bonds, financial investment, among others under a single infrastructure and where they get tokenised.

 

“This is an idea which is going global, whether it’s in India, Singapore, New York, San Francisco, or in Switzerland. You can see the gradual expansion of what’s happening, and we think, in 2026, we will be live,” he said.

   

Nilekani stressed that there was a need to introduce tokenisation within regulatory frameworks at a time when most of such initiatives in the world have been associated with cryptocurrencies.

 

“... A lot of the noise in the tokenisation world has been cryptocurrencies and other things, which are outside the regulatory framework. But what we’re suggesting is using tokenisation inside the regulatory framework, embedded compliance, but unlocking the potential of tokenised assets,” he said.

 

He added that building such DPIs comes on the back of experience of scaling systems reliably and understanding regulators.

 

“We have now seen an increasing interest in using this technology and a combination of tokenisation and AI to get something done. But Finternet is a way of doing this strategically, holistically, (and) in a structured way for all kinds of assets, high performance, within a regulatory envelope,” he explained.

 

He added that there was a need to make cross-border payments work better at a time when India was the largest receiver of inward remittances in the world.

 

He explained that DPIs have allowed the streamlining of economic activity in the country.

 

“All the DPI that we have done in the last 15 years has not only led to individual agency but also empowering institutions. A big part of the economic activity you see today is streamlined because of that. Account aggregator, for example, is a good example of public-private partnership,” he added.