Critical role played by data and data analytics in India’s digital transformation: IRDAI

Steps taken by India towards building digital payments infrastructure endorsed by the G-20 forum: Shri Chanchal Sarkar, Economic Advisor, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance.

India’s transformation towards a cashless, formal, digitized, and productive economy could be attributed to the critical role played by data and data analytics.  The level of financial inclusion achieved by India is phenomenal and the country has become the cynosure of the world due to its achievements. This was stated by Shri Rakesh Joshi, Whole Time Member (F&I) IRDAI, during the Financial Inclusion and Fintech Sumit organized by CII today.

Speaking further on the subject, Shri Joshi spoke about the massive strides taken by the Government towards building the digital public infrastructure (DPI). The creation of United Payments Interface (UPI) has provided India with the distinction of emerging as the only country which processed money digitally during the pandemic when all others were making cheque transactions.

India is also innovating to advance in the financial inclusion space and the India stack is an excellent example which provides the benefit of interoperability, trust, and consent. The way forward is to move towards a system of differential consent where consent is given only on certain and not all parameters.

Shri. Joshi also maintained that the launch of the new tech model government schemes consisting of Bima Sugam, Bima Vistaar, Bima Vahak and Bima Bharosa would go a long way to promote financial inclusion in insurance. The IRDAI has also developed state level insurance plans which would provide data profile for each state and district. The country is also looking to integrate credit, insurance, and investment to take financial inclusion forward, he said.

Finally, he said that, in the New India, the banking, insurance, NBFCs and microfinance should come together to share data to foster inclusive development and as a driving force of economic and financial stability.

Shri Chanchal Sarkar, Co-Chair, G-20 GPFI and Economic Advisor, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, also underpinned the significance of financial inclusion and said that this is the key enabler for growth and financial stability. Hence it is an important agenda in the G-20 forum which has commended and endorsed the steps taken by India on building the digital payments infrastructure.

Dwelling upon the India experience of financial inclusion, Shri Sarkar stated that the digital coverage has made a giant and winning leap forward in the last ten years and digital penetration has increased manifolds, the manifestation of which was seen during the Covid-19 era. The launch of the UPI has been a landmark initiative which transformed the Indian economy. Similarly, the payment systems have also been revolutionized in countries such as Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia, Africa, among others. Such experience sharing is of much significance as this creates opportunities for financial advancement and inclusion, endorsed Shri Sarkar.

19 July 2023

New Delhi