Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday while addressing the Global Fintech Fest 2022 (GFF) in Mumbai said that India has led the way towards an inclusive financial world through digital payments.

She urged the financial technology or fintech industry to build trust and engage more with the government.

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Addressing virtually, Sitharaman said that distances should be bridged and greater engagement should be ensured between regulators, industry and the government.

She said that distances bring distrust and therefore greater engagement with the government will help in discussions and exchange of ideas.

The Finance Minister added that the Prime Minister, Union ministers and government think-tank Niti Aayog are available all the time for consultations and discussions.

Sitharaman made these observations while responding to questions posed by Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman of Global Fintech Fest’s advisory board.

She said the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) was taking the UPI platform internationally, helping countries to create their own payment systems and networks. It is also making the cross-border payments of currencies easier.

The finance minister said the inclusive financial programmes, such as KYC via Aadhaar of the government and the UPI platform, have helped revolutionise the network of the country.

Sitharaman also said that the country’s advancement in fintech technology has brought a cashless and paperless layer to the financial world.

“As of July 2022, there are 338 banks live on the UPI platform. That month, in the loan segment, the UPI platform registered 6.28-billion transactions, valuing a sum of Rs10.62 trillion,” Sitharaman said, adding that the scale of this achievement is something worth highlighting.

“The account aggregator (UPI) will revolutionise the credit flow towards the medium and small industries and they need to have sustainable sources of finance. This account aggregator system went live on September 2021 and within just 12 months, 52 RBI-regulated entities including banks and NBFCs are on the account aggregator’s platform,” said the finance minister.

“The number of accounts enabled on the account aggregator network stands at 1.1 billion and the scale at which the account aggregator has grown in the last 12 months is that the wealth of opportunities there are for the global fintech people to see what more can be done creatively if more than 1.1 billion people have come on the platform,” said Sitharaman at the event.

Apart from fintech, she also spoke about renewable energy, stressing that the country is moving fast on solar and wind energy sources.

(with inputs from Agencies)