Show me the money: Fintech dreams take wings in the city

Think of fintech, and you think of Chennai. Five large global banks service other centres from the city. For instance, World Bank, which started as a 70-member team and a single business unit, has grown to a 1,000-plus workforce with 12 business units, operating from an own building in Taramani and two leased facilities. Or take Barclays, which has a 17,000-strong team here, has leveraged its talent pool to become a global benchmark in finance and financial services rolling out end-products from the city. 

Chennai being a pioneer in banking, insurance and NBFC (non-banking financial companies) is an established fact. “Market share has been won but not the mindshare,” noted K Ramakrishnan, Managing Partner, Spark Capital Advisors India, moderating a panel discussion on ‘Making Chennai a Next Generation Financial Hub.’

He echoed the thoughts of Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, MD, CTS & President, MCCI, who observed a phenomenal change in the marketplace with technology changing the face of financial services.

“This is going to be driven by customer demand and experience,” he said, pointing to the era of going beyond mobile to Internet of Things (IoT) enabling ‘anytime, anywhere and anyhow’ servicing standards with customer experience, regulatory changes and automation altering the course of everything, putting technology as well as talent at stake.

For global financial biggies setting up their bases here, many aspects go under the due diligence process. “We consider risks, geo-political environment, financial risks, the type of arbitrages to be enjoyed or natural calamities,” said Sunil Kumar, Centre Head, World Bank, as he belted out factors including talent availability and the time zone advantage. On all parameters, Chennai scores, with its staff here doing the group’s entire payroll.

“Over 30,000 trading transactions, which, in value terms, works to $1.3 trillion and 25 per cent of the World Bank’s procurement contracts are executed from Chennai,” Kumar said. However, knowledge management is a challenge as it tries to embed digital workforce with physical workforce seamlessly.

Uma Ratnam Krishnan, CEO, Barclays Global Service Centre, said this is the right intersection of technology facilitating customer experience, which leads to design creative service offerings. “We can create a global finance hub in Chennai,” she said. The factors determining hiring is the resources’ ability to learn and grow. The need is to package this global capability for local learning and vice versa.

Referring to inclusion, TT Srinivasaraghavan, MD, Sundaram Finance, said, “Tamil Nadu wrote the book on financial inclusion.” Trust, ethics and values are the fundamental basis for sustainability of institutions such as the Indian Bank or the LVB. Compare this to some of the global behemoths, which rose like meteors only to disappear. Risk, which is top of the mind for everyone today, is understood intuitively by people of this state as it is in the Tamil DNA.

Arun Jain, CMD, Intellect Design Arena, sought a paradigm shift in mindset so that instead of following orders, Chennai can set the agenda for the world. Citing his experience of transitioning to create a brand of intellect by pumping over Rs 1,000 crore in four years so that selling a product at a 20 per cent premium to a global player is not perceived as a challenge anymore.