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We’ve always been big believers in connecting with businesses from across the world. For what better way could there be to gauge the problems of the market, absorb ideas, and come up with innovative solutions?
In that spirit, we were back again at the Global Fintech Fest this year as their Payments Partner. We connected with the finest of fintech and banking over 200+ sessions, spread across 5 days.
Jio Convention Centre, Mumbai came alive with vibrant displays and innovatively designed booths by businesses from all over. As we set up our booth, we felt the energy and excitement building up for the largest fintech summit in the world.
Inaugurated by our Hon’ble Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, GFF 2022 kicked off on 19th September. What unfolded over the next four days were 200+ sessions, featuring 600 speakers from more than 125 countries – the reflections of which were visible all over Mumbai!
Missed the action? Fret not. Here’s a recap of what we did at GFF 2022.
What we talked about
Global Fintech Fest 2022 saw conversations between founders and top brass from businesses of all kinds as well as fintech and banking veterans from across the globe. GFF, thus, became a ground of ample representation, with every fintech company bringing to the fore their unique challenges, and coming together as a collective to tackle them.
As the Payments Partner of GFF 2022, we brought together four power-packed panels for our attendees.
In conversation with Akash Sinha
Veteran fintech journalist and Founder & Principal at Black Dot Public Policy Advisors, Mandar Kagade engaged our Co-founder & CEO Akash Sinha in a delightful conversation on the fintech landscape – and how Cashfree Payments is spearheading payments and banking.
The discourse flowed from how Cashfree Payments cracked the code to the cash-on-delivery (COD) refunds problem with Payouts, discovering bigger issues to take on along the way. Over time, their mission evolved: Cashfree Payments set out to create dependable online payments solutions for the ecosystem as a whole.
“In the mid 2010s, there was rapid mobile penetration in India. Businesses that had been serving their local markets started going online to widen their reach beyond their immediate vicinity. The payments infrastructure, however, was not ready for that – it was primarily built to serve offline businesses.” said Akash.
“We saw the startup flurry in Bangalore, and as people who worked in the e-commerce industry, my co-founder Reeju and I encountered a lot of problems with payments – particularly COD. If you didn’t trust the merchant, you’d usually place a COD order. And, there was hardly any thought of online payments at the doorstep – it had to be cash,” he added.
Working in the e-commerce industry, understanding the pain points of online payments and setting out to create solutions started off the journey of Akash and Reeju. What transpired over the years that followed, was the development of one of the most reliable, all-encompassing payment suites in India, which Cashfree Payments is now known for.
The discussion culminated on yet another interesting subject – Issuing-as-a-Service (IaaS). IaaS is set to revolutionise the way businesses integrate and partner with merchants for benefits and rewards, making it something to watch out for.
BaaS – making every company, a fintech company
Banking as a Service has been all the rage in the fintech and banking space for some time now. But, there remains much to be unpacked on the subject.
How does the BaaS business model run?
What role do API aggregators play?
What happens when banks come head to head with fintech players?
What does BaaS mean for MSMEs and SMEs?
Where do web3 and blockchain come into the picture?
All leading to one burning question:
Can BaaS really make every company a fintech company?
Aditi Olemann, our Director of New Initiatives dissected all things BaaS with Jithesh PV, Head of Digital and Fintech Partnerships, Sucharita Mukherji, Co-founder and CEO at Kaleidofin, Sumit Agarwal, Founder, Vyapar, and Rajesh Mirjankar, Managing Director and CEO at Kiya.ai.
The panel looked into how banks in India are evolving to become full-stack BaaS players, backed by robust systems, APIs and third party alliances. Further, the panellists delved into the delivery of core and ancillary banking services to build one-stop fintech solutions, as well as to cover those hitherto unbanked.
“We at Cashfree Payments have been into API banking for a few years now. Over the years, we have partnered with banks and worked towards building the right infrastructure. We believe we are at the opportune moment to plug into the BaaS ecosystem. This, again, happens in partnership with banks – banks are the bedrock, and fintech companies fuel the innovation. Together, banks and fintech companies can build a better banking ecosystem from both B2B and B2C perspectives,” said Aditi.
Business models from bank-fintech partnerships to embedded finance, monetisation via delivery of banking services, and the role of leading fintech players pivoting into the BaaS space were also among the subjects discussed.
There were several thought-provoking takeaways from the session.
- First, that banks and fintech companies are at the cusp of finding the synergy that ties them together to deliver superior BaaS solutions to businesses and consumers alike.
- Second, that BaaS could be the key to “last-mile financing”. It can enhance customer experience by bringing banking to them, rather than them having to seek it out.
- And, lastly, concepts like embedded finance are a step towards building a seamless financial flow for customers and businesses alike. This can be made possible by coupling the robustness and legal soundness of banks, and the innovation characteristic of fintech.
Taking Indian investments across borders
Joining our Co-founder Reeju Datta, Somnath Mukherjee, AVP – Business at Zerodha, Anthony Petrilli, CEO, ViewTrade, Ronit Kar, Head of International Stocks at Groww, Viram Shah, CEO and Co-founder, Vested Finance, and Prakash Venkatramani, Senior Director of Global Payments – India at Flywire talked about all things cross-border payments – with global investing being central to the discussion.
Investing in foreign stocks is common. What isn’t common is the ease of cross-border investments. This absence of convenience has extended to other cross-border transactions, such as paying tuition fees in other countries or paying for travel overseas.
“Ease comes in the form of lower costs, faster movement of money, and simplification of documentation associated with cross-border payments,” said Reeju.
Our panellists discussed end-user challenges of cross-border investing, and the pivotal role regulators and payment aggregators play in tackling them. Cashfree Payments, as part of the second cohort of RBI’s Regulatory Sandbox for Cross-Border Payments, brought to the fore the numerous solutions that can revolutionise global investing for Indians.
Elaborating on the issues Indian investors face while investing in stocks abroad, Reeju said “The first challenge of cross border payments is that until now, you would have to go to a bank for all of your Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) transactions. What that usually meant, especially for capital account transactions such as investing in securities, was filling out a lot of documents.
“The mode of payment would have to be a SWIFT transaction, which would be one-off, with the costs associated being much higher. It would be very difficult for someone to invest in stocks worth Rs 1,000-2,000, if the processing cost itself was around the same amount. The money would also take longer to reach your account and become available for investing.
“RBI was thus very open to the idea of an aggregator helping achieve efficiency in the capital account transaction process,” he added.
Talking about the solutions, he mentioned, “We have employed an advanced KYC flow, we transact in bulk helping us save costs per transaction significantly, and the speed of settlement is next-day, which we are trying to bring down to the same day.”
With lots of thought-provoking inputs flowing from all the panellists, the panel turned out to be extremely insightful.
The changing shape of digital lending
The concept of digital lending has become the gateway to hundreds of ideas in the last few years. But, the sector has also been on the regulatory radar in recent times.
Our panellists, Aditi Olemann, Director of New Initiatives at Cashfree Payments, Vinay Mathews, Founder & COO, Faircent, Gaurav Kumar, Founder & CEO, Yubi, Amit Jain, Partner at Price Waterhouse & Co LLP, and Vineet Tyagi, Global CTO, Biz2Credit & Biz2X, took to the stage their thoughts on the paradigm shift in digital lending.
The panel talked about the journey of digital lending and how it has changed over time. Over the years, the digital lending market has evolved significantly. In the early days, business was slow, and business models were met with investor and consumer scepticism. But in recent times, the industry has matured, with many new models coming into the picture.
“At Cashfree Payments, our focus has been on how to enable the new and innovative lending models – the likes of co-lending and BNPL – via disbursements, repayments and infrastructure, and how do we support the system while being compliant with the new lending guidelines. The focus is on enabling a seamless experience for the Regulatory Entity (RE), for the LSP, for the borrower and yet being compliant with the guidelines,” said Aditi, talking about Cashfree Payments’s take on the subject.
The panel dug deeper into the recent changes in the regulatory landscape for digital lending. They talked about how RBI is taking strides in introducing customer-centric regulations, ensuring that the sector develops while keeping consumer interests at its core.
A booth to remember
One of the most memorable parts of GFF was the 200+ booths that businesses had set up at the venue. And, we couldn’t miss making a splash!
Our booth encapsulated the essence of Cashfree Payments’s all-pervasive product suite. From collections to disbursals, BaaS to industry-wise tailored solutions, Cashfree Payments has the A-Z of payments covered.
The Global Fintech Awards 2022
Just when we thought that GFF 2022 couldn’t get more eventful, we were recognised as The Best Payments Aggregator at the Global Fintech Awards 2022!
It is moments like these that fortify our resolve to bring the best of payments and banking to businesses in India and the world, all the more.
Parting thoughts
Global Fintech Fest 2022 brought us a lot of perspective, as we listened to businesses from all over share their problems.
It gave us much to think about in terms of building products that are not just easy to use, but are user-empathetic, and are a step towards the future of Indian fintech.
Here’s to another phenomenal year at Global Fintech Fest!
