To mark the recent partnership with Accion, LeapFrog & Lok Capital to scale up our financial inclusion platform, IFMR Holdings earlier this month hosted prominent leaders from the financial services industry, partners and key investors at an event held in Mumbai.
The event brought together an array of key players that operate in the financial inclusion landscape and provided a vibrant setting to engage and discuss issues that are shaping the industry especially in the backdrop of innovation in the technology and regulatory architecture.
The event featured keynote speeches by Mr. Nandan Nilekani, Former chairman, UIDAI and Ms. Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson, State Bank of India. Also making special remarks were Dr. Nachiket Mor, Mr. Michael Schlein, Global CEO, Accion, & Michael Fernandes, Partner, LeapFrog Investments.
Disruption in Financial Services – Nandan Nilekani
In the first keynote that was delivered by Mr. Nandan Nilekani, he described the current environment as that of fundamental disruption in the financial services industry. The proposition with which he set the tone of the session was “Are we at a WhatsApp moment in finance?”
Making a compelling case of the larger shift that the economy is witnessing towards a mobile-first cashless economy, he described how mobile phones would be at the center of the re-imagined banking landscape in the years to come. Also the presence of relevant interoperable platforms would enable in the future, paperless, cashless and presence-less service delivery.
In addition, he outlined how as a nation we will go from being data poor to data rich in 5 years, and how relevant data streams and authentication in combination with machine learning & algorithms will change the face of financial services.
Following his keynote, Mr. Nilekani had a Q&A discussion with Bindu Ananth on the evolving financial service provider architecture in light of the recent disruptive changes expected to be brought about by, among others, the newly licensed payments banks.
Watch Mr. Nilekani’s Keynote and the Q&A session in the video below:
In the next post we will feature the keynote address of Ms. Arundhati Bhattacharya at the event.
