Why startup ecosystem must take financial inclusion as a key goal for future growth

Speaking at the News9 Global Summit, India's G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant recently said, “What has happened in India is that on the mobile, on the go, you can do fast payments, wealth creation, credit, and insurance. All in 30 seconds to 1 minute. This doesn't happen anywhere in the world. Nowhere in the world does this happen. And nowhere in the world has any country lifted over 25 million people above the poverty line in the last ten years.”

Mr. Kant goes on to add, “If you are a $35 trillion economy by 2047, it means that you would have taken the per capita income of every Indian close to $17,500 USD. It is important to understand that we are a country of 1.4 billion people. That means you would have transformed the lives of 1.4 billion people in the world. India has got into lots of sunrise areas of growth.”

When we talk of sunrise areas, participation of people is a sine qua non for any industry to grow. Of 1.4 billion Indians, only 13 crores have demat accounts, and even fewer actually invest in equities. There are huge opportunities to invest in stock markets. With the right knowledge and technology reaching the last mile, Indians can create wealth for themselves. At Upstox, our key goal is to reach 100 million Indians in the next 3 years and create opportunities for them in a market that once used to be in the hands of wealthy people.

What has changed

A person sitting in a rural area of Odisha or Assam now has equal opportunities to trade stocks, make investments, participate in SIPs for a better financial future, own a part of blue-chip companies, be among the first to access IPOs, and invest in any listed company, just like someone living in trade centres like Mumbai and Delhi. Indeed, technology has been a great equaliser.

The greatest beneficiaries of the tech-led growth of the financial markets are the people from tier 2 and tier 3 cities. As an example, Upstox has seen tremendous growth in these regions, with a majority of its users being young, first-time investors. This was not possible without technology and the growth-centric approach by policymakers.

The perception of the share market as "satta" has vanished, and with increased knowledge and awareness, people are increasingly participating in the growing stock market.

From saving to investing

The conservative approach of saving for the future is being replaced with the approach of investing for a better future. This hasn’t happened overnight; the growth environment has been created by policymakers with efficient, investor-friendly regulations while providing ample support to Indian companies ready to take the world by storm.

The astronomical growth the fintech industry has seen in the last decade is proof of the trust the people of India have in their own startups and technology. It is truly people’s trust, policymakers’ support, and tech companies’ innovation that have made this milestone achievable.