Mr. Dilip Modi, Founder, Spice Money on his expectations from the budget session for the fintech industry.
“We hope for a tax reduction in the upcoming budget that could help small merchants to provide financial services to rural citizens. As this will help in minimizing the cost of providing financial services and foster deeper financial inclusion in the hinterlands of the country.
We have witnessed significant growth in transactions in Bank accounts in rural areas enabled by Business Correspondents leveraging the Aadhaar stack. The budget should provide economic benefits in the forms of tax exemptions and subsidies to improve the economic viability of BCs with the aim of enabling all 6 lakh villages with neighbourhood banking services, thereby building a strong foundation for financial inclusion.
The government’s focus on setting up 75 Digital Banking units in 75 districts should be continued this year as well. The involvement of existing fintech players and especially Corporate banking correspondents which are bank agnostic in driving digital banking units will help in further expanding necessary universal banking services to the last mile over restricting to one bank brand services and enable us to take a step further towards our goal of financial inclusion through rural empowerment.”