Fintech sector spreading its wings in India, attracting talents from across industries

There is a new industry that is rising with the motive of making banking easier for customers, and to top it all, it’s still away from regulators. The financial technology sector, or fintech as it is christened by users, is attracting talented individuals from all the industries.

It was last week that Flipkart hired for two high-profile jobs in the fintech business, following Paytm, which had roped in PwC's Shinjini Kumar to be the CEO of its payments bank that is yet to be launched. Not only this, Krishna Hegde, Barclays’ top executive, and Vipin Surelia, former DGM at RBI, were also hired.

Fintech, the umbrella term, covers technology-based companies operating in insurance, payment, and asset management, etc. It is already transforming banking business, challenging mammoth banks, which is why headhunters are observing talents moving towards it.

"Finance technology is a booming segment in India with the opening of numerous mobile wallet companies, non-banking financing companies and now payments banks - all running on robust digital platforms," said AG Rao, group managing director of ManpowerGroup India. Being relatively new, the segment is already generating a lot of new jobs, with most of them clustered around mobile, user experience and financial analysis.

More than 117 million Indians use smartphones and over 160 million of us are connected to the Internet, which is why a large number of companies are coming up with products that can assist their customers. Financial sector is not far behind in this, as technology is developing at a rate alarming for traditional banking.

These low-cost, high-tech technology models deal with low-value, high-volume financial customers, which is why companies like Mobikwik, Capital Float, MSwipe, Citrus Pay and Ezetap have raised more than $150 million in India.

"Considering this is a newly evolved industry, it will see at least a 20% increase in hiring due to new e-wallets and payments banks. It will be due to large scale of business (ecommerce) and financials going online," Ajay Shah, assistant vice president at Teamlease Services, told ET.

Talking about the future of fintech in India, it is as of now synonymous with just payment technology; however, globally speaking, there are 11 lending fintech unicorns. Nonetheless, the sector is expected to spread its wings in India, covering hitherto untapped areas such as lending and personal finance.

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