A ‘million dollar’ challenge, conference and exhibition have been lined up as part of the Vizag Fintech Festival, scheduled to be organised by the Fintech Valley from October 8 to 12.
The launching of the Fintech Valley 2.0, scaling from the version 1.0, will showcase the potential for investment in five domains —banktech (banking technology), insutech (insurance technology), govttech (government technology), emergitech (emerging technology) and regutech (regulation technology). Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu will launch the migration to Fintech Valley Vizag 2.0, making AP the first State to encourage startups and fintech players in a big way to choose Vizag for their operations, IT Advisor and Special Chief Secretary J.A. Chowdary told The Hindu on Monday. Fintech Valley Vizag is an initiative by the AP Electronics and IT Agency (APEITA), an autonomous agency of the State government to create comprehensive ecosystem to transform Visakhapatnam into an important fintech hub.
The festival will also feature an exhibition and a CEO golf tournament. Winners and runner-up from all the five categories will get the prize money. The Fintech Valley Vizag 1.0 focuses on banking technology and blockchain technology, he said. Bizofit and DCF Ventures have been selected as the global partners respectively for North America and rest of the world. Singex, which played a key role in organising the Singapore Fintech Festival, has been selected as the key partner to promote the flagship event of Fintech Valley Vizag.
Mr. Chowdary further said they would seek entries for the ‘million dollar’ challenge from next month. Roadshows would be conducted in the US, Singapore and other prominent fintech destinations to attract startups to Vizag.
Success story
Stating that from horizontal technology, the domain of fintech would be extended to supply chain management and real-time governance, making AP the gateway for business opportunities in the country, Mr. Chowdary said the version 0.1 of Fintech Valley Vizag has attracted four big players including Franklin Templeton and Conduent. Over 20 startups either have started their operations in city or in the process of launching their units.
At present, ICICI Bank and Mahindra Finance have started their accelerators. Both of them have completed the cohort programme for eight startups, of which three are set to launch their operations in the city, Mr. Chowdary said, adding that during the next two years, the target is to attract 200 startups in various domains of fintech to Vizag.
