Infosys co-founder and former UIDAI chief Nandan Nilekani said that the Indian finance sector is witnessing a ‘WhatsApp’ like movement due to the emergence of payment banks, e-sign, Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), and other technology revolutions, backed by information communication technologies (ICT).
Speaking at the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Leapfrog Summit here on Friday, Nilekani said, “In 2009, there was a WhatsApp movement in telecom, where it wiped out the sms business model. My analysis is, in 2015, there is a WhatsApp movement for finance in India.” “Change is coming on many fronts... new licences, smartphone Aadhar identification, e-sign, payment banks, etc. Some of it is regulated, some of it is technology, some of it is design, and some of it is market,” Nilekani said. TiE Leapfrog aims to bridge the gaps existing in the startup ecosystem to further entrepreneurship in India.
Complementing the RBI decision to grant licences to payments banks, he said that it is a great revolution. “Payments bank is a great piece of innovation from RBI; and now we have eleven, no one expected eleven... This will create another huge revolution,” he said. Besides, with initiatives like Jan Dhan and Aadhaar, IMPS, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), licences to payments banks and digitisation of the Indian economy, the economy will witness a “WhatsApp movement”, backed by smartphone being accessed by half a billion people.
According to him, RBI’s pathbreaking decision on Wednesday to set up payments banks will take India fast towards electronic payments. “The move towards less cash has already started. And now we are becoming more of a digital cash society,” he said.
Exhorting the entrepreneurs, he said that they should anticipate the future and build a viewpoint to become successful. “The fact is that the future is changing much more rapidly than ever before. In the next 5-10 years, technological trends will reshape our world and transform the way to work, play and live,” he said.
Former Infosys executive Mohandas Pai said that entrepreneurship and startups are going to be the biggest employment creators for the youth in India, irrespective of whatever schemes and programmes the government comes up with.
Published 21 August 2015, 20:27 IST