The Silicon Review ^Asia

In order to achieve the long-sought digital dream, the government must make adequate investments in digital infrastructure and take necessary measures to promote the expansion of fintech companies.Fintech companies might thrive in the sectors where banks have failed, as predicted by industry experts.

A comprehensive payments vision document has been published by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently. RBI also drafted a regulatory sandbox that can be used by fintech startups to create a $1-trillion digital economy by 2025. As mentioned by the central bank, the focus would be on four Cs: Cost, Competition,Confidence, and Convenience.

Anurag Jain, the founding member of the Digital Lenders’ Association India, said that government must build public infrastructure that ensures last milers are connected to the central economy. “Be they banks or fintech lenders, most are concentrated in urban centers. The government must ensure that credit facilities are easily accessible to rural borrowers as well,”he further added.

The truth is even though Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana(PMJDY) has targeted underpenetrated markets like the rural areas, many of the accounts holders don’t use the banking services. Rather, they continue to use informal credit channels. The New to Credit (NTC) customers have negligible data footprint, which banks require to provide them services like personal credit and insurance. As per the statistics, there are around 400 million adults in the country who have no credit history, and of them, around 300 million have never accessed credit and the rest don’t even have an account. “To achieve the objective of financial inclusion, it is imperative to make it easier for these customers to access funds,”said Manu Sehgal, business development leader, Emerging Markets, Equifax.