India's best is yet to come: PM

Mumbai: Prime Minister Narendra Modi indicated that he would return to power in five years as India’s “best is yet to come”, while addressing the annual 5th Global Fintech Fest, here on Friday.

PM Modi also expressed confidence that India’s Fintech robust ecosystem would play a huge role in providing a quality of lifestyle to the people of the country.

At this point, the PM smiled and expressed the belief that he would “be present in the 10th edition of the GFF, five years later” (2029), and was greeted with a loud round of applause. In his keynote address, PM Modi said that the nation’s economy and markets are in a celebratory mood during the ongoing festival season as the GFF is taking place in the city of dreams, Mumbai.

Hailing the Fintech innovation, the PM said that earlier foreign visitors to the country would be amazed by her cultural diversity, now they are astounded by its Fintech diversity as well, which can be witnessed from the time they land at the airport.

In the past 10 years, the Fintech industry has received a record investment of over $31 billion, along with a start-up growth of 500 per cent, highlighting how affordable mobiles and data and zero balance Jan Dhan bank accounts have contributed to this revolution.

“Today, the total number of broadband users in the country has increased from 60 million to 940 million in the past 10 years… More than 530 million have a Jan Dhan bank account. There is hardly any 18-year-old in the country without an Aadhaar Card, a digital identification. In a way, we have connected the population equivalent of the entire European Union to banks,” said Modi.

The trinity of Jan Dhan, Aadhaar Card and Mobile have broken down the mentality of ‘cash is king’ and paved the way for almost half of the digital transactions in the world taking place in India, he pointed out.

The country’s UPI has become a major Fintech example in the world, it has enabled 24x7 banking services to the remotest corners of the country in all-weather conditions, and even during the Covid-19 pandemic, India’s banking system functioned uninterrupted.

As the 10th anniversary of Jan Dhan, celebrated recently, the PM said that it has also become a huge medium for women’s empowerment, with more than 29 crore women having a bank account that opened up new opportunities for savings and investments.

Based on the Jan Dhan accounts, the largest microfinance scheme, Mudra Yojana has disbursed a credit of Rs 27 trillion so far in which women beneficiaries are a staggering 70 per cent.

The three-day GFF which concludes on Friday, played host to around 800 speakers spanning 350-plus sessions with a participation of more than 80,000, covering areas like digital payments, lending, insurance, wealth management, etc, and was organised by the Payments Council of India, National Payments Corporation of India and the Fintech Convergence Council.