Narendra Modi inaugurates InFinity Forum | For the first time, Mobile payments surpassed cash withdrawals from ATMs
The InFinity Forum, a thought leadership forum on FinTech (financial technology), was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi via video conference.
The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), under the aegis of the Government of India, is hosting the event on December 3 and 4, 2021, in association with GIFT City and Bloomberg.
In the inaugural edition of the Forum, Indonesia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom are participating as partner countries.
The InFinity Forum will make the world’s leading minds in policy, business, and technology to debate and provide actionable insight into how the FinTech industry can leverage technology and innovation for inclusive growth and the greater good of humanity.
The Forum’s agenda is focussed on the theme of ‘Beyond,’ with various sub-themes including FinTech beyond borders, with governments and businesses focusing on developing a global stack to promote financial inclusion; FinTech beyond Finance, with a focus on convergence with emerging areas such as SpaceTech, GreenTech, and AgriTech to drive sustainable development; and FinTech Beyond Next, with a focus on how Quantum Computing will shape the future of finance.
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The Prime Minister stated as money has undergone significant change throughout its history. He added, mobile payments in India surpassed cash withdrawals from ATMs for the first time last year. Banks that operate entirely online and have no physical branch locations are now a reality and may become widespread in less than a decade.
Narendra Modi stated, “As humans evolved, how we conduct business also evolved as well. We’ve progressed from barter to metals, from coins to notes, and from cheques to cards”.
Highlights of his speech in the inaugural event of InFinity Forum:
- India has proven to the rest of the world that it is unmatched in terms of technology adoption and innovation. Digital India’s transformative initiatives have paved the way for the application of innovative Fintech solutions to governance.
- Emphasized the importance of transforming these fintech initiatives into a fintech revolution. “A revolution that enables every person of the country to attain financial empowerment”.
- Less than half of Indians had bank accounts in 2014, but India has now almost universalized financial inclusion in the last seven years, with 430 million Jan Dhan accounts.
- Emphasized the importance of financial inclusion in the Fintech Revolution.
- Fintech is built on four pillars: income, investments, insurance, and institutional credit.
- India is ready to share knowledge and skills with the rest of the globe while also learning from them. “Our ideas for Digital Public Infrastructure can help enhance the lives of billions of people globally”.
- Highlights Digital Payments: 690 million RuPay cards processing 1.3 billion transactions last year; UPI processing about 4.2 billion transactions in November month; nearly 300 million invoices are uploaded on the GST portal each month; despite the pandemic, approximately 1.5 million railway tickets are booked online each day; last year and FASTag processed 1.3 billion seamless transactions
