CHENNAI/BENGALURU: Six months after he founded payment gateway company Razorpay in 2013, Harshil Mathur was looking to shift his headquarters from Jaipur. Of his three options — Delhi, Mumbai or Bengaluru, Mathur chose the tech hub of Bengaluru over the financial capital, Mumbai."Fintech has become more about technology and less about finance . While banking is an important part of our business, technology plays a greater role. We needed to be in a city with tech talent," said Mathur, who struggled to find the right talent during the six months in Jaipur. Only four of his 100 employees are involved directly in banking alliances, which involves bringing banks and non-banking financial companies on board; the rest are in technology, sales and marketing.With the rise of tech startups that focus on financial services, the traditional banking landscape is transforming — and Mumbai, Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru are competing to become the country's fintech capital. Mumbai is still the financial capital as it is home to major banks and financial institutions, but it is technology that is becoming integral to finance.Mumbai leads the pack with 462 fintech startups , but Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru are not far behind (see graphic). Mumbai still tops as banks often find that collaborations with or acquisitions of startups are the fastest way to build products such as wallets. Banks are not only developing platforms with startups but are also investing in them.In second place is Delhi-NCR — with 441 fintech companies, according to data from startup tracker Tracxn — which offers the advantage of quality managerial and business-savvy talent. Rajat Gandhi, founder of P2P lending platform Faircent, said, "While Mumbai remains the hub for core financial services, Delhi and Gurugram have a chunk of tech talent."Payments bank Paytm and its parent company One97 Communications have been headquartered in Delhi-NCR since inception. "We moved to Noida in October 2008 as a 500-member team. It's nearly a decade since and we have expanded our teams just as the city has grown. Since this a rapidly evolving technology hub, availability of talent and great connectivity are some of the key advantages of being based out of NCR," said Shankar Nath, chief marketing officer, Paytm.Cost and availability of talent and real estate and ease of signing customers are some of the factors entrepreneurs consider before picking a city for their headquarters. Razorpay's Mathur, for instance, said he looked for a location where he could sign customers quickly. "It was easier to get the early customers in Bengaluru since people here are willing to try new products," he said.Nithin Kamath chose Bengaluru over Mumbai while setting up his brokerage firm Zerodha in 2010. "We are a fintech business. Access to talent was our main requirement. We realised that talent was here in Bengaluru. Experienced guys come with baggage," said Kamath. The average age of his employees is 26 years.Founders of Chennai-based online loan marketplace BankBazaar and credit facilitator CreditMantri feel the city offers talent and real estate at a reasonable cost."We have a 70,000 sqft office in Chennai and land is affordable in the city. The attrition rate here is low. We have our engineering, process management and operations teams in Chennai," said Adhil Shetty, co-founder, BankBazaar.CreditMantri's Ranjit Punja said the other advantage Chennai offered was that employees could spend longer hours at work as commuting does not eat up as many hours as in Mumbai. "Sourcing quality talent is easier and attrition is lower," he said. Chennai has over 100 fintech startups, according to Tracxn. PayU India MD Jitendra Gupta has been living in Mumbai for the last 18 years. When he left ICICI in 2011 to start Citrus Pay, which was acquired by PayU, Mumbai was the obvious choice. "Being in Mumbai has quite a few advantages, including proximity to banks or regulators. One can just call and meet people and it is easy to establish connections," he said.But he does admit there are disadvantages to being a fintech startup in Mumbai. "We had to set up engineering teams in Pune and Bengaluru as it was very hard to find the relevant skill set in Mumbai," he said. Though he opened a Bengaluru office, Gupta chose to stay on in Mumbai, even after Gurugram-based PayU India acquired Citrus for Rs 860 crore in 2016. "Technology has bridged the need to be physically located with your team. We are always connected through Skype or phone," he said.Investors say it is talent that's leading entrepreneurs in their choice of city. "With distribution going digital and local, access to talent is fast becoming the primary criterion in the choice of location. Enterprise customers have realised that it's the product that matters. Remote deployment and support are accepted practices so the real differentiator is having the right product which comes back to requiring the best talent. Apart from Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are making an effort to welcome fintech startups," said Sanjay Swamy, partner, Prime Venture Partners.Though they set up in other cities, founders make regular trips to Mumbai or situate small teams there. "I travel thrice a month to Mumbai to meet banking executives," said Subramanya S V, founder of Bengaluru-based mutual funds startup Fisdom, which has a team of five located in Mumbai.BankBazaar's sales and business development is done by a 30-member team in Mumbai. "We have segregated the divisions according to the capabilities, ensuring smooth functioning," said founder Shetty. "One has to leverage the best each city has to offer."(With inputs from Digbijay Mishra)