Andhra Pradesh in general and Visakhapatnam in particular will emerge as major hub for financial technogy (fintech) with the State government, the first in India coming forward to encourage it in a big way, said Partha Iyengar, vice president and Center Fellow (India) of Gartner on Tuesday.
Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of two-day Blockchain Business Conference organised here by Fintech Valley-Vizag, an initiative of the A.P. government, the senior executive of the world’s leading IT research and advisory company, said the future of Visakhapatnam was quite promising with the opening of Fintech Tower and promotion of blockchain.
Earlier, he delivered a talk at the concluding day of the conference on future of blockchain technology and the challenges ahead for the technology business leaders.
ADVERTISEMENT
Mr. Iyengar said, “I am impressed with the bold initiative launched by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to promote fintech and creation of a used case repository. For the first time, a government has stepped into encourage blockchain and other financial technologies.”
Blockchain is a non-stop growing list of records called blocks by linking and storing them using cryptography and cryptocurrency. This is emerging as the leading software platform for digital assets.
Mr. Iyengar said blockchain would revolutionise the fintech activity with increase in its role in gaming, manufacturing, retail and wholesale businesses. Admitting that there was high expectation from blockchain industry, he said from fintech perspective, blockchain promotion was in need of a multifaceted strategy.
ADVERTISEMENT
It should address parameters such as business value, mentorship, monitoring, divesting, brand promotion, partnership and collaboration. He said Fintech Valley-Vizag was itself an accelerator to bring various players to improve the ecosystem.
Innovative culture
Underlining the need to promote innovation culture and out-of-the box ideas and their implementation with successful mentoring, he said digital banks, high-end resources and venture capital approach and acquisition trend would make further give a fillip to the startups and commercial ventures.
Stating that all fintech companies would be one’s rivals, he said one need to leverage on Gartner’s Disruption Index, which talks about chain impact, unique business model, potential target market and viability.