Panel Discussion: Where are fintech companies heading?
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00:00 Where do you see the FinTech companies in India going?
00:11 Are they able to culturally address or embrace this change?
00:19 Will it take a long time or are we a different demography?
00:22 It's an extremely vast topic to try to address in one panel.
00:26 What I would just do is echo a little bit of thoughts that you have mentioned and then
00:29 put my views on how I see this going forward.
00:32 Very clearly social media evolved as a very small group sharing with friends, photographs
00:37 and all that stuff and then has now become much bigger.
00:41 How it has become much bigger is clearly from a company perspective or from an organization
00:45 perspective you saw groups of people on social media so it became one more way to reach out
00:51 to these audience and then it became a two-way interaction and now it is reaching a level
00:56 where you are getting more and more confident of saying can I do transactions in that entire
00:59 piece.
01:00 So I think it is becoming much more convenient.
01:03 The cost of reaching out might not be very low but the cost of doing a transaction is
01:08 going to be extremely competitive and it is creating micro markets in itself and that
01:13 is how you see the future.
01:14 So when you are talking about these banks which are basically working on the clusters
01:19 being created by various groups within the social media and then that is becoming like
01:23 a micro market.
01:24 So you can put technology on top of it and that works like a market in itself where you
01:28 can exchange and do transactions.
01:29 So it is moving to that side on the transaction.
01:32 In India what is the status right now?
01:34 In India most of the organizations especially on the financial services because it is largely
01:39 regulated and plus financial services, banks, etc. are always last to get on to this kind
01:47 of a brand and for various reasons, brand reputation, risk, etc. and there are so many
01:51 other issues which could come in along with environments which are not tested and secured.
01:55 And so I think it is now when so far people are still using it for engaging with clients,
02:01 so far people are only using to reach out, maybe getting new prospective leads, clients,
02:06 segmented target, targeting segmented customer base.
02:11 So far that is where it is reaching out.
02:12 We have now seen in the last one, one and a half year some bit of transactions being
02:16 enabled.
02:17 So through various wallets and other means which are based on social media, you can get
02:24 your contacts, you can transfer it to other people who are part of your list of contacts
02:29 on Facebook and stuff like that.
02:30 So that is also now coming in.
02:31 So let us see how this will evolve.
02:33 I think this will definitely evolve.
02:35 It will always have an angle of which is an overhang on the financial markets is about
02:41 how secure it is, do you have a proper AMLA, the anti-money laundering.
02:45 So there will be always some gaps on how much this can happen.
02:47 So it will definitely take a lot of lower end transactions, smaller ticket size transactions,
02:52 make it much more convenient.
02:55 But can it go beyond that?
02:57 I still have, I think the jury is open and we still do not know whether we will be able
03:02 to go beyond that.
03:03 Thank you.
03:04 Govind, do you ever foresee a situation in the future where social media will be the
03:10 new bank?
03:11 Yes, so basically first we need to see what exactly social media has to offer.
03:17 There are more than 2 billion users across the globe today on social media.
03:22 Companies like Facebook have got more than 1 billion active users today.
03:25 WhatsApp has reached 1 billion users again.
03:28 You are talking about WeChat which is basically China centric, but they have got about 600
03:34 million active users.
03:35 Twitter has about 350 million users.
03:36 There is a similar LinkedIn about 250 million users.
03:37 So if you look at the e-commerce industry, they have really capitalized on this opportunity
03:46 which is available on social media today.
03:48 If you look at the statements from Starbucks, they say they sell more coffees on Facebook
03:54 than they actually sell with people walking into their stores in US.
03:58 We know what is happening in e-commerce space in India.
04:02 So what we need to really see is how quickly banks will be able to adopt this.
04:07 The opportunity is very huge.
04:09 If you go a little bit back in the past, after the 2008 meltdown that happened in US, after
04:18 that across the globe, most of the projects that the banks were running, they were only
04:23 to satisfy the regulator.
04:24 In the last two, two and a half years, the trend has changed.
04:28 The digital has become the biggest initiative today.
04:30 So if you want to get a project approved in a bank, if it is digital, the chances of it
04:34 getting approved are very high.
04:36 So banks and financial institutions are again focusing on the opportunity that is available
04:41 and how do they cross sell and upsell products to their customers, how do they acquire more
04:45 customers.
04:48 Some banks have gone to the extent of actually opening virtual banks on Facebook.
04:53 So my view is that social media is here to stay.
04:57 It will only grow.
04:58 [MUSIC PLAYING]