Fintechs should see agri, rural areas as new markets, not just social responsibility: FM Nirmala Sitharaman
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has called on India's fintech companies to view the country's agriculture sector and rural areas as more than just a social responsibility, saying they were an opportunity to 'create new markets'.
'Agriculture and rural areas need more innovations so that farmers will have to be connected to the markets better. Every fintech firm should view rural India as a fertile ground not just as a social responsibility but as an opportunity to create new markets. And you'll know from the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies that in the rural area today demand is reviving and sustaining itself and it is there that we need to have greater participation from our side,' the Finance Minister said on Wednesday at the Digital Payments Awards 2025, hosted by the Ministry of Finance's Department of Financial Services. Sitharaman also said fintechs should participate more when it comes to providing credit to Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
The Finance Minister said many other countries could only dream about the speed with which Indian companies were innovating in the digital payments space, with even several advanced countries not making progress at the same pace. 'There are several countries which appreciate and equally ask us if there can be an interaction which can be enabled,' Sitharaman said.
A host of companies won at the Digital Payments Awards, including Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, and UCO Bank in the public sector bank category and HDFC Bank, City Union Bank, and IDFC FIRST Bank among private banks. In the small finance and payments bank categories, Equitas Small Finance Bank and India Post Payments Bank were named winners. Among fintechs, Whatsapp Meta, Navi, and Mobikwik won joint first place in the third-party app providers category, while PhonePe, Paytm, and Google Pay were awarded the top three places in the offline digital payments acceptance infrastructure category.
'Push the boundaries'
While lauding the 'light-touch regulation, heavy encouragement' approach, the Finance Minister said India still needs 'a bulk of its population' to benefit from financial inclusion. To become a developed country by 2047, Sitharaman called on those in attendance to 'push the boundaries'. 'You have set pioneering targets, achieved them. But now we need to take it further and set standards,' she said.
Noting that the fintech adoption rate in India was 87 per cent as against 67 per cent globally, the Finance Minister said nearly Rs 44 lakh crore had been transferred through Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) since 2014, resulting in savings of Rs 3.48 lakh crore.
Going forward, the Finance Minister said financial inclusion should be advanced even further, with regional languages playing a bigger role, strengthened by voice-based services. Account aggregators, she added, could unlock new possibilities, with the number of entities on the account aggregator platform rising to nearly 700 as of March 2025 from 24 three years ago.
Sitharaman also highlighted the need to improve literacy and cybersecurity, with solutions needed to ensure people don't fall prey to being 'digitally arrested' or that fly-by-night operators don't take away their money. 'We need a set of fintech companies which are constantly working on giving solutions for the newer challenges which are arising.'
Speaking earlier at the awards, M Nagaraju, Secretary, Department of Financial Services, lauded the accomplishments of Unified Payments Interface as a mode of digital payment, saying its success had crossed borders as it was live in seven countries, namely Bhutan, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the UAE. Nagaraju echoed Sitharaman's priorities for the future, naming deepening digital payment adoption across sectors and geographies, strengthening cybersecurity and fraud prevention frameworks, promoting digital and financial literacy at the grassroot level, and 'ensuring that digital payments remain inclusive, secure, and citizen-centric'.
Make for the world
According to Sitharaman, India's fintech companies and their innovations have the potential to become global public goods that can benefit other emerging and developing economies, which would open new markets for Indian firms.
'Our players must aim to export our successful models abroad. We have the talent, we have the market scale, and we have also proven solutions. So fintech revolution in India will further flourish,' she said. Pointing out that India's fintech market is projected to grow to over $400 billion by 2028-29, Sitharaman said the scale of opportunity is immense and that the sector's 'best chapters are yet to be written'.
Siddharth Upasani is a Deputy Associate Editor with The Indian Express. He reports primarily on data and the economy, looking for trends and changes in the former which paint a picture of the latter. Before The Indian Express, he worked at Moneycontrol and financial newswire Informist (previously called Cogencis). Outside of work, sports, fantasy football, and graphic novels keep him busy.
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