Shameem Ahsan Speaks at India Fintech Forum
- By Ahsan H Aminur
Mobile Financial services is the most needed solution for economic and social development in the Southeast Asian region.These mobile services have pioneered the solution for the unbanked people in developing countries like Bangladesh and India.Right policies by Bangladesh Government to back these initiatives have helped 55% people of the Bangladesh receive financial inclusion.
Companies like, bKash, Rocket, Nagad in Bangladesh and Paytm in India have received tremendous success in this region because they solved a problem that persisted for decades and created mobile services that could potentially reach 2.5 billion people with access to mobile phones in developing countries. The application of technologies in financial services is not new, but these companies represent a paradigm shift. Shameem Ahsan, General Partner of Pegasus Tech Ventures and Chairman of eGeneration Group said this at the Annual event of India FinTech Forum held in Mumbai India on 29th November 2019.
He was invited by the Indian Finance Forum in association with Government of Maharashtra and National Payment Commission of India to a panel discussion on “How can global startups access the Indian fintech ecosystem and Indian startups explore international markets?” at the event.
The panel was moderated by Amol Dethe, Editor – Economic Times and Shanker Subramaniam, Country Manager – India & Singapore, invest in Denmark; Pavitra Walvekar, Co-Founder and CEO, Kudos; and Vishal Kanvaty, SVP – Product & Innovation, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) were the other panelists.
Shameem Ahsan proposed that the regional organizations like BIMSTEC and SAARC facilitate cross-border payments and e-commerce by incorporating fintech solutions and increasing ease of doing business in the region infront of international industry experts and policymakers.
Shameem Ahsan said, “According to international report fund transfer & payments industry anticipate that in the next five years they could lose up to 28% of their market share to FinTech while bankers estimate they are likely to lose 24%”.
The overall fintech space is booming tremendously as India saw $674M in funding in fintech companies in the last 3 months where Asia had 1.8 billion dollars in tech investments in the same 3 months’ period. The B series investments have also almost doubled in Fintech Companies during the last 2 years indicating that the market is moving towards maturity. Today the success of fintech can be seen in cases where Alipay adaptation was faster than Facebook or Gmail making Ant Financial the 10th most valuable financial services firm globally.
US Federal Reserve announces its plan to promote a round-the clock real-time payment (RTP) and interbank settlement services by 2024. Similar platform can be made by countries in the South Asian region as the fintech ecosystem will need a very strong backing from the policy makers and regulators to flourish.”
The India FinTech Forum has more than 450 fintech companies and over 5000 individuals who are members of this forum are dedicated to enhancing the fintech ecosystem. Indian Fintech Award was pioneered in India to celebrate the best innovations from fintech companies.
The 4th edition of IFTA is organized by India FinTech Forum in partnership with Government of Maharashtra,Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark, Copenhagen Fintech and Paris Fintech Forum among many international partners.
The author is a Manager, Public Relations & Communications at eGeneration Group and a regular guest writer of Fintech.
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