Fintech Growth Can Help Kerala’s Reimagine Beyond Tourism: Invest Kerala

KOCHI:
New-age Kerala’s rapid rise in financial technology promises the state’s potential to emerge beyond its traditional image as a lush-green tourist destination, but authorities have to ensure long-term harmony between all stakeholders for the trend to sustain, according to a key session at the Invest Kerala Global Summit (IKGS) today.

The role of policymakers, investors, innovators and the beneficiaries is equally crucial in the progressive application of improved technologies to products and services in the financial industry, speakers noted at a 75-minute discussion on ‘Thriving Ecosystem for Banking, FinTech and Digital Innovation’ at Lulu Bolgatty International Convention Centre here.

“To use an analogy, the FinTech sector is like Kerala’s famed Kathakali dance-theatre. If you lose on one of the constituents, say music or percussion, the entire show is off,” said K.V.S. Manian, MD & CEO of Federal Bank, in a keynote address at the 80-minute session that was moderated by his colleague Shalini Warrier, Executive Director of the 75-year-old financial institution headquartered in Aluva, 20 km north of the city.

Substantiating his point by saying “Stability is good, but stagnation isn’t”, Manian said Kerala’s fintech has been growing in the “right direction”. “Kerala has brought in investments of Rs 44,000 crore in the last three-and-a-half years, with focus on enterprise growth and job creation,” he pointed out, hailing the government’s Scale-Up Mission aimed at the uplift of 1,000 MSMEs into businesses with Rs 100-crore annual turnover in four years and Year of Enterprises initiative establishing 2.9 lakh such enterprises with an overall investment of Rs 18,000 crore.

Further, an increasing preference for tier-2 and 3 cities among entrepreneurs will be of added benefit to Kerala with its small urban spaces high on liveability indices, the speaker emphasized. Enhancing its reputation as a travel destination, Kerala can focus stronger on medical tourism, he added.

As for fin-tech, where Kerala has more than 200 startups with an estimated market size of Rs 2,000 crore, the sector is high on inclusivity with women leading close to one-fifth of the enterprises. Precision engineering is another area the state should lend its focus, Manian said.

A round-table that followed the talk featured Muthoot Digital CEO Chandan Khaitan, PhonePe Founder Rahul Chari, National Payments Corporation of India Chief Offline Product Operations & Technology, Giridhar G.M. and NSE Senior Manager (Southern Region) Himanshu Srivastava.

The panelists spoke about the criticality of co-innovation to derive maximum opportunities, the vitality of internal workshops and hackathons, the surge of ULI (unified lending interspace) that provides content-based financial and non-financial data of borrowers from multiple service providers to lenders, and a need to form a pan-India platform to support SMEs.

As many as 3,000 delegates are participating in the February 21-22 IKGS, which was inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.