Bhubaneswar: In order to develop a roadmap for the fintech industry in Odisha, a day-long Odisha Fintech Festival was organised in Bhubaneswar on Saturday.
The festival, which was held for the first time in the state, saw participation from startups, fintech companies, students, researchers, policymakers, and representatives of multiple sectors. Several activities ranging from inaugural session, panel discussions and fireside chats to product launch and a MoU signing ceremony were organised.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated the event and delivered a virtual address. The festival aims at identifying opportunities and challenges and attracting more fintech companies to the state.
The festival, which was organised with support from NPCI and iServeU, a homegrown fintech startup that is serving leading banks and fintech across India, showcased the latest trends in fintech space and increasing acceptance and popularity of fintech applications among the masses.
Senior company executives attended the festival as panelists and shared their insights into technology trends. They included Debiprasad Sarangi, CEO, iServeU; Soumen Das, Director of Capital Markets & Investments at Vikasa Capital; Rajeev Varma, MD and Head – FIG and GIB, Edelweiss Financial Services; Rageshree Tungar, VP Sales, Pinelabs and Vishwa Nath Jha, Founder Saarthi.ai.
The financial revolution unleashed by UPI and the immense possibilities through its usage have been discussed in the panel discussion titled, “Credit Card – UPI Linkage: Driving the next wave of Growth in digital payments.”
In the session, “Voice Tech – The power to unlock the real value of Bharat,” technologies and ways to enhance digital and financial inclusion were discussed. A discussion covered the theme “Accelerating Access to Finance for SMEs”. The widely acknowledged Indian fintech success story and the challenges ahead were dealt with in the session “Growth of Fintech in India”. The growth of Odisha’s fintech ecosystem and the possibilities inherent in it were taken up during the session “Fintech & Bank Collaborations in East India”.
Two Master classes – “Understanding Investments in Fintechs” and “Driving Innovations through NPCI’s API Accelerator Platform” – and a fireside chat titled “Transforming Rural India via UPI for PPIs” were organised as part of the festival. Various BBPS (Bharat Bill Payment System) products of companies such as Misscallpay – Tata Power, AU Small Finance Bank, and iServeU Technology Pvt Ltd., were launched in the programme.
The Odisha government also signed MoUs with NPCI and Paytm. The MoU with NPCI will help increase digital transactions in the government operation by effective use of NPCI’s digital payment solutions and develop innovative and replicable models for increasing digital transactions. The MoU with Paytm is aimed at the financial inclusion of citizens and merchants of the state as well as investment facilitation.
It may be noted that Odisha has made rapid strides in the fintech space in the last few years and multiple fintech startups and companies such as iServeU, Autosave, Mool Technologies, and Subhalaxmi Future Solutions have launched their innovative products and services nationally.
Tusharkanti Behera, Minister of Electronics & IT; Pradeep Kumar Jena, chief secretary; Vishal Kumar Dev, principal secretary, Finance; Manoj Kumar Mishra, principal secretary, E⁢ Omkar Rai, Chairman, Startup Odisha; Manas Panda, special secretary, E⁢ Suvendu Pati, CGM RBI and Praveena Rai, COO, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) participated in the event.
