Fintech is a booming industry all over the world, and those signs are becoming apparent in India as well. With most of the startups in the region focusing on payments, and over US$1.3bn invested over the past three years, things are looking good.

A recent study by Zinnov, a leading management consulting firm, shows the Fintech situation in India is well worth keeping an eye on. The majority of funding has been raised in the past three years, and the industry attracted a lot of foreign and Indian investors. Everybody wants to part of the next big thing in finance, and Fintech startups seem to hold all the cards.

Fintech In India Is Skyrocketing

Over 180 Fintech startups were analyzed to create this report, most of whom seem to focus on the payment sector in general. In fact, one in three Fintech startups focuses on this segment, which makes sense in India. The country has seen a boom in mobile adoption, yet not everyone has access to traditional financial services.Oddly enough, financial services are only represented by 19% of all companies.

As far as the funding goes, investors seem to be flocking to mobile wallet solutions. PayTM is one of the biggest contenders in this space, and they raised over US$890m in the past three years to expand their presence. But other players are emerging in the mobile wallet space as well, all of which are actively targeting the e-commerce and m-commerce sectors.

Zinnov Engagement Manager and Project Lead Anand Subramaniam stated:

“The financial services sector is undergoing a transformation with digitally enabled start-ups employing newer business and delivery models to compete with traditional enterprises. India is proving to be a hot-bed for Fintech start-ups. The conceptualization of the India stack and the goal of Digital India are further expected to augment the growth in the Fintech segment”.

Payment terminals are being upgraded to accommodate for the mobile payments era as well. At the time of writing, there were over one million mobile PoS terminals being used, and this growth will continue over the next five years. When consumers embrace mobile wallet solutions, merchants will have to follow suit.

Do not discount peer-to-peer transfer of value either, though. The vast majority of p2p lending startups in India were founded in the past three years. Attractive alternatives such as Bitcoin are also trying to gain traction in the country, albeit they will face stiff competition from the Fintech sector over the next few years. In the end, this will all benefit the consumer and SMEs, though.

Source: Pr Newswire

Header image courtesy of Shutterstock