Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday held a review meeting with fintech firms and assured that the government will continue to support the industry.During an interaction with founders, CEOs and senior leaders of fintech companies, various issues such as ease of doing business for fintechs and preventing financial frauds were discussed.
Sitharaman assured that the government will continue to support the fintech industry, the Finance Ministry said in a post on X.
The meeting, which was held on the sidelines of Digital Payments Awards 2025 here, was also attended by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary and Secretary, Department of Financial Services, M Nagaraju.While addressing players during the Digital Payments Awards 2025 event, she urged fintech firms to view rural India as a fertile ground — not just as a social responsibility but as an opportunity to create new markets.In just three years, nearly 700 entities as of FY25 across banking, insurance, securities, and pensions have joined the Account Aggregator (AA) platform, up from only 24 in FY22, she said.The number of accounts linked through AA has soared to over 15 crore, compared to a mere 1.5 lakh in FY22 – driving loans worth over ₹88,700 crore and empowering nearly 1 crore personal finance management users, while lowering onboarding costs for intermediaries, she said.Quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the finance minister said, fintech should not only ‘Make in India’ but also ‘Make for the world’.”In this context, Indian fintech innovations have the potential to become global public goods that can benefit other emerging and developed economies.”This will open new markets for our firms…our players must aim to export our successful models abroad and capture global markets. We have the talent, we have the market scale, and we have the proven solutions,” she said.Sitharaman ask fintechs to find solutions to prevent digital arrests, cyberfraudsFinance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday asked fintech startups to come out with solutions to deal with the rising incidence of digital arrests, cheating by fly-by-night operators, and other kinds of cyberfrauds.Lauding the success of fintechs, the Finance Minister said they have helped in speeding up financial inclusion and taking the payment system to even the far-flung areas of the country.Speaking at the Digital Payments Awards 2025 Ceremony here, Sitharaman said it is important to ensure that startup companies come up with solutions so that people are not arrested at home digitally, or fly by night operators don’t take away their money.
Another major threat, she pointed out, is ‘deep fake’, which is causing a lot of damage to the public in large.”Today, we should take care of addressing them so we need a set of fintech companies which are constantly working to give solutions for the newer challenges which are arising,” Sitharaman said.She also called upon the fintech sector to further expand the digital lending facilities to the key MSME sector.Sitharaman further said Indian fintech innovations have the potential to become global public goods that can benefit other emerging and developed economies. This will open new markets for our firms.International merchant payments through UPI are now accepted at select merchant outlets in seven countries, including Bhutan, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka and the UAE.”Our players must aim to export our successful models abroad and capture global markets. We have the talent, we have the market scale, and we have the proven solutions,” she said.This, she said, will open up new markets for domestic firms.Indian fintech market is projected to grow to over $400 billion by 2028-29.”That’s not too far away. Just three years. Reflecting on an anticipated annual growth of 30%. The scale of opportunity is immense. I firmly believe its best chapters are yet to be written.”Together, let us ‘Innovate, Include, and Inspire’. Innovate new solutions fearlessly, include every citizen in your vision, and inspire the world with what India can achieve,” she said.Noting that India now actually accounts for almost half of all real-time digital transactions in the world, she said direct benefit transfer (DBT) has saved a lot money by plugging leakages.About ₹44 lakh crore have been transferred through DBT since 2014 and ₹3.48 lakh crore have been saved.The Minister said the speed at which innovation is happening in India is just a dream for many other countries.”Several advanced countries are nowhere close to the kind of momentum our fintech companies have achieved, not just in terms of progress in their respective areas, but also in creating entirely new paradigms. This is something which is very unique of the Indian fintech sector,” she said.A World Bank study noted that through Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), India achieved an 80 per cent financial inclusion rate in just six years.Some observers who have gone through this report have said that this feat would have otherwise taken nearly 50 years, Sitharaman said.
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