Cash to QR: The Great Indian Fintech Revolution

[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Samiran. Hi, I'm Nilesh. Hi, I'm Sheetal and you're listening to 3TB. 3 Techies

[00:00:09] Banter.

[00:00:10] Hi everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Depending on wherever you are

[00:00:17] tuning in to listen to our podcast. Sheetal Nilesh and I tend to kind of talk about

[00:00:24] technology in a interesting and fun way, make it more relatable. We cover a wide variety of topics,

[00:00:32] you know, whether it's blockchain, artificial intelligence, food technology, clothes technology.

[00:00:38] One of the most fascinating areas which catches everyone's interest, maybe also because it's

[00:00:44] made probably made the maximum unicorns a billion as is fintech. And while we've covered it in

[00:00:50] different ways, we thought it would be really, really interesting to kind of really get someone

[00:00:55] who's kind of lived and breathed that space in India. Someone who's been part of its evolution,

[00:01:02] you know, from nothing to where it is today. We were really, really fortunate to have

[00:01:08] Navin Surya with us. Navin has been part of the fintech industry in kind of a very

[00:01:15] multi-dimensional way. While most people kind of straddle a couple of them, not everybody is there.

[00:01:21] I don't think of many, many people who are there and also most people have worked in the

[00:01:25] fintech space, you know, that check mark, you know, Navin's done that. Some people have a

[00:01:30] fintech startup, you know, check that very few make successful fintech startups which

[00:01:36] Navin has done. Then of course some people also move on to the investor side, you know,

[00:01:40] which is okay, you know, you kind of do well and then you kind of invest in others.

[00:01:45] But the other side, you know, Navin actually is one of the very, very few people I know who's

[00:01:50] actually been part of the whole industry process of growing the ecosystem. You know,

[00:01:56] that's a true give back, you know, not many people kind of go and step back and say,

[00:02:00] you know, now I'm going to do something to grow the entire ecosystem, you know,

[00:02:05] make fintech regulation better, you know, work with the RBI, work with Sabi and all that. So I think

[00:02:11] he's done a lot of that. And of course, his interests have evolved over time, but he's kind

[00:02:16] of stayed close to fintech today is more of an active investor. He mentors a lot of startups.

[00:02:22] And he is of course someone who's very, very closely associated with technology and takes

[00:02:29] fun in the small things about technology. And just to illustrate that point before

[00:02:33] we kind of call Navinon is that he very recently, I think on February 28th,

[00:02:38] Navin posted this very interesting thing on LinkedIn, which about his IWC watch and which

[00:02:45] kind of, you know, change the date of the leap year. And the fascinating thing that as he pointed

[00:02:51] out was that here is this piece of technology that, you know, there is this one aspect

[00:02:56] or feature of it, which comes to life once in four years and works seamlessly.

[00:03:01] You know, so I mean, I think he takes pleasure in the small things of technology.

[00:03:05] And we hope to kind of have a very, very interesting chat with Navin and learn

[00:03:12] tons and tons from him. So thank you once again, for kind of joining us. And we look forward to

[00:03:18] a great conversation with him. I actually, I mean, I'm the type of jump straight into

[00:03:24] the conversation. So can I please jump in with my first question to you? So 17 years ago,

[00:03:30] you did things which changed and revolutionized the electronic payment system in India cut to today

[00:03:39] when FinTech is a buzzword, everybody's talking about different technologies in the space of

[00:03:43] FinTech. I just want to get a sense of what has it been in the last 17 years? So what are

[00:03:50] the key highlights for you of the last 17 years? Not as a personal journey, but as an

[00:03:55] industry is what I want to get a sense of. So just one correction before that, Sita,

[00:04:00] it's 24 years. I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2000. Oh, okay. I somehow thought of

[00:04:07] 2007. That's you're absolutely right for one of the business which I've obviously become famous

[00:04:13] and everybody associated me with HCAS which Scott founded somewhere around 2004-2005.

[00:04:17] So you're right in that way. But my entrepreneurial journey and very few people know

[00:04:21] that I actually know Samir and since my management training days in PCS and I've learned a lot from

[00:04:27] him by the way. I mean he just talks less but the immense kind of leadership stature he had when

[00:04:33] I was in PCS and kind of work we were doing together. I worked with him under him also some

[00:04:38] projects. So first thanks for that Samir and nice meeting you today Sita. So yeah, 2000 was

[00:04:44] the official entrepreneur journey you could say. I mean come from a business family so that way

[00:04:48] it's been lifelong already except three, four years when I was in TCS doing work for others

[00:04:53] which I think you've also changed now working for yourself. So industry milestone for payment

[00:04:59] industry which I think my first business itself was a financial services. It was exchange

[00:05:04] which had element of payment but more B2B in nature. In fact very few people know it was

[00:05:09] more like a virtual currency which got accepted in between the platforms sorry between the members

[00:05:14] on the platform and that time there was no blockchain there was no crypto but we had invented it in

[00:05:19] year 2000 itself without that technology. Then the retail part of it began in 2004-5 with HKS but

[00:05:28] while we were doing it and like you rightly said about the industry I remember somewhere around

[00:05:32] 2004-5 RBI and ministry started working on first formal you could say fintech segment

[00:05:41] which was payments also started setting up the department of payment and settlement systems

[00:05:46] and this was all around one bill that came which was a payment and settlement system that

[00:05:50] which actually was birthed because of 9-11 in the US they wanted to trail financial

[00:05:55] transactions that they thought were strong. Everybody said that we need to make sure

[00:06:00] that the money trail is maintained is controlled and therefore the government has to know

[00:06:04] what is happening in payment system. So 2011 is when finally the bill got approved and it

[00:06:10] became an act the department was already there in RBI in fact I had already started a

[00:06:15] payments business in 2004-5 so you are watching this journey very closely and this was the time

[00:06:21] we realized that we have to work as an industry to deal with the government and the regulator

[00:06:26] which is RBI industry even today RBI is the sole regulator when it comes to money and the payments.

[00:06:33] So if you see at that stage I think the digital payment in country from let's say literally

[00:06:38] zero other than the credit card I can't say zero but let's say something that was happening very

[00:06:43] miniscule. Early days estimate was somewhere around 2% of the entire spends in the country.

[00:06:49] Today if you talk about you easily talking about 25 to 30% of that and if you take 2011

[00:06:56] to now I think these are like what decade and a half not too many years less than that actually.

[00:07:01] So this is a journey that India has made and this was the first big milestone

[00:07:06] and this is the bigger achievement that put India on the whole you could say the fintech map.

[00:07:12] In fact even today within the fintech obviously payments contribute a lot followed by lending

[00:07:16] and now the other space is getting hotter and hotter be it insurance be it the wealth.

[00:07:22] So every companies have grown especially around COVID time so on the payments milestone one

[00:07:27] was the outcome from 3% to now close to 25-30%. Again setting up the bill coming after

[00:07:34] that the department getting set if you see from the department from the first license for a non-bank

[00:07:40] ever other than the NBFC in the RBI who only used to dealing with banks. This was the first of its

[00:07:45] kind with the intervention of technology and financial services where they agreed to license

[00:07:50] a non-bank entity as a payment PPI as as is to care called prepared issuers right. So that

[00:07:56] was the first guidelines that came. If you again see from there to today

[00:08:01] you had multiple licenses emerging out of that department after PPI today you also have account

[00:08:06] aggregator. You also had somewhere in between I think some other licenses also BBPOU and BBPS

[00:08:15] the entire billing payment system the entire NPCI creation that again happened after this.

[00:08:20] So if you see from in terms of milestones one is outcome but the number of licenses that were

[00:08:24] enabled by RBI within the payment system in that brief span of time is many. The number of

[00:08:30] entities again within the Fintech ecosystem is one of the largest almost one-third entities within

[00:08:35] Fintech ecosystem while the number keeps changing from 7000 to 12,000 will always be

[00:08:40] largest number in terms of payments so that number continuously grow. So if you see from

[00:08:45] our department and again let's not forget the bigger milestone of payments bank which

[00:08:48] again got created around similar time. So in last decade and a half you have seen all this

[00:08:54] kind of outcome and most importantly NPCI creating world's biggest success story for the fast payment

[00:09:02] starting with IMPS moving to UPI and today UPI is a known story so I don't want to spend more time but

[00:09:07] that is what again sealed the India's stature in the whole world that

[00:09:11] then it's no longer somebody who's legard we could do our own technology we could do

[00:09:16] our own ideas and we could be much bigger and bigger than all the countries in the world

[00:09:21] and again as I said fast payments India is the leader today in the country and of course very

[00:09:25] recently what you saw CBDC which is where RBA is acting as a start-up itself right. So CBDC is

[00:09:32] again the next game changer my personal belief is the success you've seen with UPI the potential

[00:09:37] of CBDC is actually literally 10 to 100x more why do I say so because payment systems work

[00:09:44] with the existing payment instrument which are not currency CBDC is actually a form of currency

[00:09:49] in a virtual so where you have a physical currency where it doesn't work in digital right the physical

[00:09:55] people know doesn't work in virtual so you had a need of money especially in electronic form debit

[00:09:59] card credit card pps wallets all those instruments but the moment you have your currency which also

[00:10:05] is in a form of digital your transaction the finality of transaction and for an example there's

[00:10:10] no payment and settlement lag there is payment and settlement the settlement finality is at the

[00:10:15] same time right as you exchange your money so there are game changing things that are possible

[00:10:19] and again within CBDC there are all kind of possibility India just started with the retail

[00:10:23] P2P and P2M you will see a lot more happening again on a wholesale side you will see again

[00:10:28] a lot more happening in a global side so all kind of things are happening I think it's just

[00:10:32] the start also keep in mind economy has grown from like 910 to 5th and aspiring to be third

[00:10:39] and I think we'll be there spends are increasing and the overall growth in the country the way

[00:10:44] it's going at the same time cash is still growing so the potential for the payment is still very very

[00:10:50] large that is interesting but so in fact a couple of things Navin that you really touched upon

[00:10:58] one is the this role of the regulator and I think we've kind of heard it in forums but

[00:11:05] you know normally a regulator has seen as someone who is constraining and you know

[00:11:11] controlling but I think in our case the RBI has been a very very forward thinking organization

[00:11:19] in most parts so I think maybe you know a little bit of because of your proximity to

[00:11:25] how this happened you know little thinking on that and number two is this the other point

[00:11:30] that you mentioned is that in this highly competitive kind of world you know you know

[00:11:35] how did you manage to get everybody or how did this industry kind of speak in one voice because

[00:11:41] that is also the reason why it's like that whole thing like you know we are together market will

[00:11:46] grow but normally people you know selfish interests say that I will take a bigger pie of bigger

[00:11:51] share of the small pipe but in this case y'all grew the pie so big that everybody got a bigger

[00:11:56] share of it so two parts with one I think initial days it was lot easier obviously things

[00:12:03] are a lot more complex because the association the payment council of India which I started with my

[00:12:08] other industriically friend Viswas Patel who's running CC Avenue that time so if you see there were only

[00:12:14] three or four entities three large one us as a it's case on the payment issuance site

[00:12:19] two on acquiring side builders Vasu Ajay and Viswas Patel who was running CC Avenue

[00:12:25] Viswas had already working on a small committee within IMI and there was aspiration to grow

[00:12:31] that and as the regulation came in while they were not getting regulated at that time

[00:12:35] because Arbe said that initially we're not looking at account aggregators or payment

[00:12:40] gateways sorry payment gateways and payment aggregators not account aggregators it's a

[00:12:44] different term so the focus was on PPI and the PPI that time were handful and some of us

[00:12:50] were in business about seven eight and everybody knew that RBI does not understand this community

[00:12:58] this is a new experience for them and unless we all behave ourselves and unless we all work together

[00:13:04] to really align what are the larger industry goal and what are the best practices that we will have

[00:13:09] to adhere to and what are the let's say male practices we will have to ourselves curve if

[00:13:15] you want to grow this industry and it was also easier because all the founders were very clearly

[00:13:21] focused on the growth but in a regulated and let's say what he call is a sustainable

[00:13:26] growth that was the thought process so it was a lot easier that that state so we all came together

[00:13:32] it was a critical need even RBI was very clear that we don't want to talk to all of you while

[00:13:36] we can always if there are specific issue pertaining to our entity but it's always

[00:13:41] easier that if you talk in one voice what do you want what we want from you so it became by

[00:13:46] default the small committee becoming a payment council of India I chaired it for 12 years again

[00:13:50] as a voluntary role the industry was huge support everybody worked very closely and from

[00:13:56] there today like I said each of these license holders committees even remittances global domestic

[00:14:01] all of them are part of it yeah the environment has got complex but the base things have not

[00:14:07] changed that industry has to work with the regulators regulators and industry both know

[00:14:11] that ultimately we exist for the end consumers and the at the interests of the country's

[00:14:17] those two are kind of paramount principles as long as anything that we talk and anything

[00:14:22] that are brings on those two principles there's no way that you can actually keep it away

[00:14:26] you have to follow that and yes there has been hits and misses it's not that it has always

[00:14:31] been a very smooth journey like any startup it has always been or like any industry that evolves

[00:14:37] it's always a kind of spiral thing right keeps going up and down but keeps moving

[00:14:42] gradually right so there has been a kind of different licenses different policies sometimes

[00:14:47] good sometimes bad but good part is the dialogue was continuously happening I do remember one time

[00:14:52] all the all the PPI's compulsory KYC was to happen then for some reason it kind of

[00:14:58] was not accepted that there should be relaxation later on some relaxation were brought back

[00:15:02] so again each of these consultations helped sometimes there is a time mismatch as to what

[00:15:07] industry want and what Arbe wants but again Arbe has a much bigger role to play right

[00:15:11] but ultimately everybody agreed that while we don't want to make the country cashless

[00:15:16] but we want less cash in the system the only way less cash can happen in the country is when the

[00:15:21] ecosystem with guidance of regulator work together and support of the government policies and let's

[00:15:26] not forget India is unique with the very successful digital public intra model right

[00:15:32] so that also started coming in so again it's a three-way approach where the collaboration has

[00:15:37] worked so Navina slightly different question but you know one of the things and you speak

[00:15:43] about self-regulation so in the fintech space it was obviously something that you

[00:15:49] y'all agree to do but what happens in the world of technology is that there is always this debate

[00:15:55] about technology companies not self-regulating in in alignment with what is known as the greater

[00:16:03] good or the betterment of the consumer it's always greed and profit oriented and that's

[00:16:08] something that is typically what everybody talks about what is it that the world of technology can

[00:16:14] learn from the world of finance from that perspective of self-regulation working with regulatory bodies

[00:16:20] and working with policy makers in order to ensure that the industry per se grows and

[00:16:27] it's not just one organization which is profiting or you know a couple of organizations which

[00:16:34] in the profit space I mean very good question two things first I want to clarify see there is two

[00:16:38] kind of self-regulation one that industry does voluntarily right which is what has been happening

[00:16:43] so far and one at a stage it becomes more formalized it becomes more governance oriented and even

[00:16:49] let's say authorized and controlled through regulators so actually the country is now

[00:16:55] evolving and moving into the next phase where all these industry bodies are moving into

[00:16:59] a different phase where they will be some of them if not all of them will be authorized by RBI to

[00:17:04] act as a formal asset like we have a die like we have empty right so that's a phase we are now here

[00:17:10] the role and responsibility of our industry ecosystem again changes a lot more from this

[00:17:15] merely like you said group focused from merely increasing the let's say merely

[00:17:20] negotiating on the policies for your benefit and and let's say betterment it's actually

[00:17:26] almost like a quasi-regulatory role similar to what our base is going to play and again it has

[00:17:31] to be balanced with all the ecosystem play it can't be just the industry body it has to be consumer

[00:17:35] it has to be merchant so that's the role that's the transition we are in now coming to tech and I

[00:17:40] think you're probably talking about big techs I would say fortunately while some of those issues

[00:17:46] exist and I don't think globally anybody has solved it this issue is not I mean I was

[00:17:50] just looking at SORA today and I mean we already know what's happening with the

[00:17:54] chat gpd the problem or I don't know whether it's a problem or other the challenge is that because

[00:18:00] the things are moving so fast by the time you it's like you're you're tempting a target you're

[00:18:05] suiting by the time the target is met so that's the challenge with most of the governments

[00:18:09] and by the time let's say you regulate what is happening on app probably you'll move to AI apps

[00:18:13] right so that's the challenge that remains but so one is that it's a moving problem but

[00:18:18] I would say that we still are relatively fortunate that India it has been well balanced

[00:18:23] if you see from a fintech perspective the regulator and government is very clear that's a finance first

[00:18:29] approach is a customer first approach in fact customer the foremost foremost I would say priority

[00:18:34] there are any customer protection angles slightly coming to risk they immediately tell you

[00:18:39] so India model in that way is slightly different if you see while we do have a big tech players

[00:18:44] they're all playing a role in the ecosystem but they know that India is slightly different we

[00:18:48] can't do whatever we want here the rules here are a lot stricter when it comes to financial

[00:18:52] regulations right so compliance and those who are taking a do our chances or advantages or maybe

[00:18:58] they got three years window of the covid period because the attention was somewhere else we're

[00:19:03] already seeing those things now getting corrected sometimes as we say that in the correction

[00:19:09] sometimes even certain good people also suffer but let's say this is a phase where the correction

[00:19:12] will happen and you'll have a again sustainable organized development the growth is still very

[00:19:18] high in the industry on the big tech I think so by the way one thing we didn't touch while

[00:19:23] we focus on payments that's not the way payments got involved today are big also for last two

[00:19:28] three years have a dedicated department for fintech called fintech departments again this is great

[00:19:33] thing because rba knows that any new subject we need a dedicated team we need dedicated resources

[00:19:38] and they need to give full attention to the sector which is evolving so that exists now

[00:19:43] and I do know that they have looked at the subject of a big tech how they operate what

[00:19:47] they do and they have certain plans I can't talk about it because it's part of a committee but

[00:19:51] all I could say that the government here and the regulator here and the industry ecosystem

[00:19:56] are working very closely they know the potential risks you know the potential misuse but they also

[00:20:01] know the benefits see the reality is also that sometimes you could draw a scale with their

[00:20:05] Spartan sex so trying to balance and I think appropriate framework would immerse similar

[00:20:11] to asaro which is a next level formal framework and that is in works so we'll see it in next

[00:20:16] six to 18 months all of that emerging so I mean just again kind of switching gears a little bit

[00:20:23] here is that for someone who comes into this sector maybe today you know you look at you know

[00:20:30] lot of companies solving lot of problems but for a I don't know maybe a young

[00:20:36] entrepreneur maybe a startup or whatever you know what are the big problems that you think that

[00:20:42] still need solving I mean in terms of you know what are the things that people can work on and what

[00:20:47] are you know are things out there that are attracting interest more from the consumer as well as from

[00:20:53] the investor I mean like you know typically when you look at the ocean what will I do

[00:20:57] there's so many payment gateways there are so many there's no space for me

[00:21:01] So two three things Amir first this whole growth is driven because of the very

[00:21:07] low penetration of financial services in India if you look at the data right overall

[00:21:12] banking is probably 50 plus idle population you talk about payments which is now moved

[00:21:17] brought rapidly around 30 percent 25 30 it keeps fluctuating but like I said that cash is still

[00:21:22] growing parallel right so the portion it is still exists if you look at everything else

[00:21:26] after that they're all in single visit of the growth of penetration right you talk

[00:21:30] insurance you're talking about an average across all the insurances three to four percent

[00:21:34] you talk about lending you compare China from a GDP ratios you're 10 times behind

[00:21:39] so if you take any sector and then you go deeper and I mean I can't go into specifics because that's

[00:21:45] like a two detail and then specific opportunity but the reality is another simple example right

[00:21:49] take credit card for an example so many years so many companies let's say if in our credit

[00:21:55] bureaus we have about 700 800 million consumers who would have taken loans sometime all the

[00:22:01] credit card companies put together would have issued about 150 million so again right there

[00:22:06] there is a gap of four to five acts now I understand all of them may not be carded or not

[00:22:12] card worthy or credit worthy when I say card didn't necessarily mean a physical format but

[00:22:16] fundamentally if you are a credit worthy you should have a credit card or a wallet whatever

[00:22:20] you want to call it right so the reality is that gap exists again fundamentally there was

[00:22:26] a time when there was an issue about the business model and the cost and the feasibility

[00:22:30] as the economy is growing as pens are growing as the technology this whole

[00:22:34] dpi infra that has kind of worked with us the potential to adopt and by the way one data

[00:22:40] point the adoption rate in India 64 percent in print tag is one of the largest in the world

[00:22:46] so with the customer readiness increasing if you combine this factor the growth is very high

[00:22:50] so any smart person if he goes identify a right let's say use case stick to it stay focused

[00:22:57] execute it's a hard work and also keep a balance between that is not just the tech way it's also a

[00:23:03] finance business you know that's what people are learning in last two three years with regulators

[00:23:08] so finance first approach compliance first approach technology as an advantage you're

[00:23:12] going to be a winner very interesting I mean I think you've kind of given lots of pointers

[00:23:17] in terms of I mean you just need to look at the whole landscape and you while on the one

[00:23:22] side there is huge growth there is a lot of other things that are lagging I mean I see 20 to 25 percent

[00:23:27] no reason that India shouldn't grow between a very high two digit two three digit growth

[00:23:33] within the let's say overall ecosystem of financial services come from tech

[00:23:37] considering the penetration levels right that's and the economy growth and when you combine those

[00:23:42] two to talk about women right because while a lot of the world and the country talks about

[00:23:48] print tech and finance and inclusion and inclusivity and all of that I think somewhere in the entire

[00:23:54] conversation as a woman I feel a woman kind of gets very ignored and case in point I remember I had

[00:24:02] called up a company and asked them to come and meet me for some investments and they sent some

[00:24:09] representation and representative and the representative had the entire conversation with

[00:24:14] my husband okay decided to completely ignore me in that conversation and they called called back

[00:24:22] the next day and said you know what is your decision and I said I'm absolutely nowhere

[00:24:26] investing with you because I called you it was about my money and you decided that it's only

[00:24:32] my husband you will have the conversation with so forget it it's not happening but not just that

[00:24:37] you know there are so many women who are earning not necessarily very large sums of money

[00:24:44] but there is a whole ecosystem of women who are women entrepreneurs work from home women

[00:24:48] they come into the system because now everybody's taking their salaries

[00:24:52] into bank accounts or from GP etc but it's it's a large community which is completely

[00:24:58] ignored by the world of finance which I'm just trying to understand what are the barriers that

[00:25:05] exist in the world of finance for them not to want to speak to it

[00:25:08] your statement reminds me of a frequent case study right if you want to see a opportunity

[00:25:14] or you want to see glass half puller and by the way I'm associated with two companies both are

[00:25:18] women driven and focused on women Luxby is one which is run by Prithvirati they exactly they

[00:25:24] see this as a huge opportunity that there is and I mean even we discuss very often right very

[00:25:30] simple thing that there are so many credit cards some of them even talk about women

[00:25:36] but is there a genuine differentiation between them let's say if you want to go and do certain

[00:25:41] things which are women specific let's say maybe cosmetics we even get a very specific deal the

[00:25:46] reality is no the answer is no which means everybody's doing a lip service there's no

[00:25:50] proper customization and this is by the way Seethal when I think financial services is one of

[00:25:55] the large employer of a woman I'm not saying they are the best ratios but relatively better

[00:26:01] so I would say time is to take charge in your hands right so all your fellow

[00:26:05] women entrepreneurs need to start saying that we want to build for women and by the way it's

[00:26:10] not easy I even heard some entrepreneurs saying that we're not sure whether investors also like

[00:26:15] just the woman but I've seen mixed experience I've seen Luxby which is doing well I've seen

[00:26:20] few other companies are struggling but I'm saying there is an opportunity and I agree

[00:26:25] with you that there is this is a genuine problem and I think the world has changed and

[00:26:29] people in the existing system needs to realize that the financial decisions are now equally

[00:26:34] taken by women in fact maybe I live in a household where in fact my decision is also taken by my

[00:26:40] household let's say my bhabhi is the smartest manager in my with my dad my mom used to be a

[00:26:46] smarter money manager so I've seen the reverse examples also the question is how do we use

[00:26:51] that energy bring it out of the front so I'm 100% agreeing with your point that this is a

[00:26:56] issue that exists question is do we keep talking about it or we see it as an opportunity and more

[00:27:01] entrepreneurs come and start focusing on this and start delivering it's not easy obviously when

[00:27:06] you focus on one segment you also have to kind of be true loyal to it expanded sometimes it's

[00:27:12] also about women that sometimes they think that's too focused on us so are they big enough

[00:27:16] I mean should we work with two needs a player who's just focused on us so it's also other

[00:27:21] way issue that our customers also comfortable that's another feedback that we got in one of the

[00:27:25] companies that that sometimes women consumer thought that okay they're too focused on us will

[00:27:30] they be large enough it's also insecurity within the segment so I'm saying it's a balancing thing

[00:27:35] but good part is more and more women becoming financial independent taking their own decisions

[00:27:40] I think more they demand and some of them actually again taking the entrepreneur path

[00:27:44] we'll solve it probably next five to seven years things definitely will improve I don't think

[00:27:49] we'll be able to fully solve it but it will improve as long as we solve a little bit

[00:27:54] the needy needs to shift so that way there are a lot of entrepreneurs now working

[00:27:57] and as long as we keep this noise off they would be by the way this issue

[00:28:01] exists even at the top so take an example gff when we hosting for last two years I don't

[00:28:07] know about this year but last two years there was a parameter that how do we get women

[00:28:11] speakers contribution high and we had attempted various ratios and while we did a reasonable

[00:28:17] job of it but I think we were struggling literally to get the right speakers

[00:28:20] and getting them to agree to come or travel them and getting them to kind of participate

[00:28:24] and even find the right numbers so while there exists but we couldn't go beyond let's say about

[00:28:29] 200 women speakers of the 700 list ideally we wanted it to be like a much better ratio

[00:28:34] so in fact she did very strangely you know it's it reverses also to in which like

[00:28:40] my wife I mean she used to head UBS well in Indian gap and along the book

[00:28:46] and she says that when she's to go for customer calls and she's to go with a junior guy

[00:28:51] the client used to talk to the that guy and see that you don't like he's constantly talking to

[00:28:56] that fellow she's like she's the head of the business and this is no he's not talking to me

[00:29:05] and they you can't yeah this gender bias is not necessarily in a male

[00:29:08] alone it's in a female as well and both will have to work together to solve it

[00:29:13] I think we are at a stage where that is getting much more

[00:29:16] things are getting much greater and again thanks to the education level the work culture

[00:29:21] I think everything is changing so I'm quite optimistic I think financial independence also

[00:29:26] no I think this whole thing is like with more money in the bank so the other thing I think

[00:29:32] the other side of this is that while there is the great opportunity and there is lack this thing

[00:29:36] the need for more penetration I think the RBI and the governments have toyed with this idea of

[00:29:43] giving new licenses new banks you know digital banks and stuff like that but I think there we've

[00:29:48] not got too much success here I mean it still seems to be this I mean after that one wave of

[00:29:54] few banks that came up we've not seen more of that I mean so is it more of a

[00:29:59] wait and watch by the government is it consolidation or they are kind of waiting for some other

[00:30:04] triggers or some benchmarks to be hit before they kind of say okay you know now we're going to have

[00:30:10] more maybe digital only banks or things which will kind of help grow this thing or you know

[00:30:15] there'll be more last mile penetration or stuff like this I mean that's very interesting and

[00:30:20] I mean sorry but also globally this is a challenge right new banks globally also have

[00:30:25] struggled because somewhere there is are they finance and should they be regulated by finance

[00:30:30] ade technology should they be regulated by technology and that debates it doesn't seem to

[00:30:35] come to some conclusions so true the answer is that today the number of

[00:30:39] financial services institution and I'm adding fintech in there the numbers are already large

[00:30:44] and one side is also challenged at how do you manage and regulate them because there are all

[00:30:48] kind of issues it also results into right because when you have a larger ecosystem you'll always

[00:30:52] have all kind of players behaving not behaving some in between right so you also have to look

[00:30:58] at the overall bandwidth and the overall economic priorities so I would say that the experiment

[00:31:04] is continuously on the number of innovative ideas that are coming in I still hide obviously

[00:31:10] ultimately RBI is a regulator with a mandate of running the monetary policy as a central banker

[00:31:15] running the regulation and the support so the focus will always be that the room for error

[00:31:20] in Arbe's mind will always have to be you know in a very tolerant in their tolerance

[00:31:25] probably less than 10 20 basis point so somewhere let's say that remains a issue but

[00:31:31] I would say overall the number of institutions that we have are already large I think time to time

[00:31:36] the number of entities including banks that have been added are quite high but at the same

[00:31:39] time I think there's also consolidation going on in the ecosystem right so they're also trying

[00:31:43] to watch the somewhere we also to see that we all know that eventually financial services

[00:31:48] business run on scale you can't purely work on this right and beyond the point it has to be

[00:31:53] also profitable it also has to work on a certain economics and globally no regulator not just Arbe

[00:32:00] I mean whether it's a CB whether it's IID all of them are very clear that they also monitor

[00:32:04] companies growth and profitability beyond a certain scale it to be in a control you would

[00:32:09] not want you to fleece too much of a let's say revenues and profits just for your shareholders

[00:32:13] benefit because ultimately these are systemically important institutions for the economy so from

[00:32:18] that perspective I think they also understand that if we have to achieve our economic goal

[00:32:22] we also need larger institutions consolidation is equally important and there has been experimentation

[00:32:29] also I think sometimes we get impatience we I mean we forget that I am PS to UPI and today's UPI

[00:32:35] is also about 10 years early right so many of these systems that we've started we need to give a 10

[00:32:41] to 15 year window payments bank mixed back but small finance bank has relatively been successful

[00:32:47] there are already number of private banks they're already consolidating digital bank the

[00:32:52] reality is that you do have a model right of a new bank in the country you also have a payments

[00:32:56] bank where again there's not much of a concept of a branch yeah there are some gaps there which has

[00:33:00] been continuously under discussion but they're also looking at the number of players left here

[00:33:04] what can happen what is already existing in the ecosystem so yes it's an opportunity but

[00:33:09] I would say on the whole the approach is generally positive on the other hand you see

[00:33:13] again IFSC and a gift city model there's some very unique and new opportunities right and

[00:33:19] some of these might even come in there for not just India but for the entire world to go to

[00:33:24] with that whole focus on also export side of the entities from India right and again you see

[00:33:30] something like NPCI international which is again going global with the fast payment

[00:33:34] so it's a balancing act I mean obviously in isolation one of those two specific milestone

[00:33:40] may look slightly behind but I think as a overall ecosystem if you're growing continuously

[00:33:44] as a benchmark I think they're in a right direction so maybe I don't know enough about this but the

[00:33:51] other thing which I thought would really kind of take off because of the last mile advantage it has

[00:33:56] is the post office you know that the India post the bank you know that they so maybe it's very

[00:34:02] good in the rural areas or whatever because I think some 150,000 you know post offices are

[00:34:07] there which literally are branches of banks but I mean do you have any sense where that

[00:34:12] is going because I think there was I mean at least on paper it seems to be like a great thing for

[00:34:19] last mile connectivity inclusion and all the great things that you know we

[00:34:24] personally but last I checked I think their numbers were impressive and they continue to grow

[00:34:29] and as we also understand and as you have done many projects early you know that

[00:34:33] at the places where post office is and what kind of challenges they face right

[00:34:37] and we've also seen that as the connectivity has improved in the remote areas we've seen changes

[00:34:43] we've also seen continuous new policies coming and not just from RBI but other regulators also

[00:34:48] that more and more offline transaction though digital can also be experimented can be planned if you

[00:34:53] see a lot of these sandbox experiments are around it if you see also RBI which is a research

[00:34:59] arm or innovation arm of RBI based in Bangalore headed by Rajesh they're again working on

[00:35:05] multiple models including things like frictionless credit again IDACM so if you see the number of

[00:35:11] initiatives that are on and all of them are at least growing working obviously because in our

[00:35:15] day to day life we don't connect with that institution much so we don't realize it we

[00:35:19] don't see it so much the reality is growing true true even look at number of NBFCs right

[00:35:25] I mean look at the sometimes I also say that we debate a lot and we talk a lot about

[00:35:30] probably all digital but we also forget that in between there are a lot of contribution by other

[00:35:35] entities like NBFC I mean look at a gold loan process I mean which where in the world in two

[00:35:40] minutes you put your gold and you get your money mutation whatever it is it's a technology process

[00:35:45] whatever you call it but that has helped probably Indians a lot more right so again vehicle loans

[00:35:50] so there are a lot of such initiatives that have happened against store in-store credits

[00:35:55] whether it's a bazaar or whoever is doing it you're standing at the counter you need a

[00:35:59] a kind of let's say on-demand credit it's available to you now how many countries have all of these

[00:36:05] solutions are at this scale the India everything is also about scale economics and speed right all

[00:36:12] three things have to be there so it's not just one factor right and for a lower ticket size at

[00:36:17] times so in that sense there are a lot of all kind of things continuously happening

[00:36:21] which is a lot of time we don't see it because in our circle of discussion it doesn't come up

[00:36:27] I mean so I know we can go on with this conversation with you for another couple of hours but

[00:36:32] to bring it to a slightly more personal space what do you enjoy most about the work that you do

[00:36:38] what makes you wake up every morning with full enthusiasm to say back into the space

[00:36:43] so there are two or three things I learned about myself as a person one if I have to create

[00:36:47] something which doesn't exist it excites me a lot and if you see everything that I've done in my

[00:36:52] life at least right from the entrepreneur's earning of 2000 a big business says with the concepts

[00:36:58] they were not kind of existing in the country whether it was a prepaid wallet the whole multi-purpose

[00:37:04] prepaid wallet even before the regulation before anything else happened we had created it

[00:37:08] with the first one to even allow your money to move from SMS from IVRS right from your internet

[00:37:14] I mean before that it was only internet which where the only credit card was working so anything

[00:37:19] which is I mean this is slightly different but I also saw myself as a convergence generation right

[00:37:25] I'm sure Samiran can relate to it we read a lot of those white papers together right

[00:37:30] so you know it became a natural vision in my mind that and in a way I had created a personal

[00:37:35] diagram which actually started with the with the convergence of our technology which was the

[00:37:40] ICT right information communication technology to ultimate converging economy level that what

[00:37:46] all can happen and I was trying to see that what are the major gaps one obviously was payments

[00:37:51] another one was whole channel where all you can sell the another one was the currency itself

[00:37:55] there is a currency which exists right so like this there were multiple components so

[00:38:01] I always got excited when there are long-term future visionary things that don't exist and need

[00:38:06] to exist and if I get an opportunity to create it secondly I've always worked with the ecosystem

[00:38:11] so whether it's a payment council of India where I could get the whole industry to work

[00:38:14] with us and obviously all of them have worked very closely with us and the whole credit goes to them

[00:38:19] also so anywhere where you are to create platformization right for an example even in our business

[00:38:24] at its gas there was no ecosystem of merchant there was no ecosystem of customers there was

[00:38:30] no merchant integration api tools were just the starting time so we had to create a lot of

[00:38:35] ecosystems so this this is ingrained if you're to bring diverse set of stakeholders

[00:38:40] together it was a natural I would say ability and excitement for me that I get to meet a different

[00:38:46] set of people understand their problems and marry all these different stakeholder problems with

[00:38:51] one simpler solution so whether it's a PCI for industry solutions whether it's later after my

[00:38:56] exit with the with the fintech convergence council which we set up again in our chair

[00:39:00] for the last six years was about rest of the fintech beyond payments again the same

[00:39:05] thesis that how do we bring these different stakeholders idea was that whatever we've gone

[00:39:11] through in our journey in a digital payments evolution of the industry the same needs for the

[00:39:15] rest of the fintech ecosystem be it landing be it into into wealth be it into insure tech

[00:39:21] so we wanted to leverage that knowledge and work with the ecosystem to bring them together

[00:39:25] and later on something like gff right so innovative first time stakeholders ability

[00:39:32] to kind of bring different stakeholders so these are some of the component that always drove me excited

[00:39:38] me to do something including zfm last which was again a very diverse set of partners right from

[00:39:43] regulators to industry to let's say different country partners to different governments

[00:39:48] everybody coming together so they're always excited me to do something so maybe one just

[00:39:53] one last question for kind of wrap this up so what does what does navine do for fun

[00:39:58] what like when you're busy doing all of these things then whatever little downtime you get

[00:40:05] so what do you what do you do to get a rejuvenate and get back to doing all this other stuff great

[00:40:11] stuff that you do so thankfully post my exit from hkc in 2017 I mean I have reached if I'm

[00:40:18] able to control my time and how I want to use it I mean obviously I lost a little bit control

[00:40:23] in between and I was setting up gff for the industry right but unfortunately enough to say

[00:40:28] that on an average I do get three to four hours of my me time in a day so which wasn't really a

[00:40:34] possible most days not all days but most days so yes I have a lot of let's say hobbies whether

[00:40:40] you can talk music so most of the time music is always in the background and all kinds right

[00:40:46] from I think early days rock of with Floyd to scorpions to guns and roses to a current ones

[00:40:54] new age like the weekend to Travis Scott to all kinds so I can listen to any kind of music

[00:41:00] it's all mixed up I watched a lot of content by the way but not probably our industry but

[00:41:05] different kinds on YouTube by the way so I'm a big YouTube consumer but one thing that again

[00:41:11] excites me a lot is two things rather one is the travel and second is the whole idea about

[00:41:17] spending time with yourself around spiritual spirituality aspect of it so again that's another

[00:41:23] thing so I make sure that I go out at least seven to ten days every year where it's just me

[00:41:29] and nature probably around and you really do spend good amount of time with yourself as to

[00:41:35] what exactly is going on in your head and what is going on around you and how do you want to

[00:41:39] impact and contribute to that right not necessarily in a commercial way but in our healthier ecosystem

[00:41:45] universal way everything like we say the purpose of life right so it gives me so I should think of

[00:41:51] this way right that as we grow in our life there's certain places we get data point then we

[00:41:56] convert into information and we convert into knowledge by practicing yet but ultimately over

[00:42:02] a time continuously practicing it you also reach a place where you have a wisdom of certain

[00:42:06] things can we spend time to generate that wisdom and say with others to an extent that we can not

[00:42:12] that you can do it every time but can we use this time to convert in certain areas not all the areas

[00:42:17] and other areas probably go and meet similar people of this wisdom that's another way to acquire

[00:42:22] that wisdom so that's where I kind of I like to spend time and do as much and yeah life is

[00:42:27] good and have if there's time then meet friends like you interact with in whether in these

[00:42:32] sessions offline wherever so so that's fun that's my idea of fun and I forgot about the

[00:42:39] watches but maybe one session on watches that's something I mean I got into it for like 15 years

[00:42:46] now but like you said right it's about it's not just about doing a calculation on calculator

[00:42:53] versus you knowing why it has right how's two and two become four it's about that right

[00:42:58] your digital watch would have done that four-year thing automatically through a chip but this

[00:43:02] watch doing it which would have even stopped in between on after that fourth year something in that

[00:43:08] in the mechanical mechanism doing that after four years even if your watch has stopped in

[00:43:13] between multiple times but still on that accurate time doing it is amazing so that's like real

[00:43:18] wisdom and knowing right that kind of a knowledge I wish I had that kind of a knowledge

[00:43:23] a lot more areas so now when we do an episode on time tech we'll invite you back to talk about

[00:43:28] watches and time as technology because we're always looking for new areas which people are not talking

[00:43:36] about in the space of technology so time tech is one of them and we'll just call you back for

[00:43:42] one of those episodes where it's not about money but it's all about time on that note thank you

[00:43:48] very much for spending and giving us this time and you know coming and explaining a lot of things here

[00:43:55] but we'd love to have you on the show once again so thank you for your time