Mumbai, India -- (SBWire) -- 05/04/2016 --Fintech Storm is bringing to Mumbai on 12-13 May 2016 the collective insights of Fintech world gleaned from Europe & USA.  Banks and FIs that are readily embracing financial technology as a new strategic tool are enjoying the competitive edge globally. The early adopters of Fintech in banking are set to galvanise efficiency and speed with customer experience at the heart of this new mindset.

In this respect "Fintech Storm", the established brand from UK owned by Genius Incubator Ltd is set to forge crucial partnerships with thought-leaders in banking and policy-making bodies in India, and is hosting India Financial Forum on 12May at Hotel St Regis - a unique platform to bring together key BFSI players, Payment companies, Fintech constituents and investor community to provoke a new thought-process.

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is one such crucial alliance Fintech Storm has embarked on building in India. Speaking about the forum, confirmed keynote speaker at the 12 May Summit, Shri A.P.Hota, CEO of NPCI said -  "Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a transformational payment system project which would facilitate immediate "send" and immediate "collect" 24x7. Being API based, banks and financial institutions would have enough flexibility to develop products on the UPI platform. Early indication shows great enthusiasm on the part of the ecommerce players to make use of UPI for the payment leg of transactions. "

Mr Hota expressed his enthusiasm about this first of its kind summit to catalyse intellectual debate among CEOs of BFSI sector -   "The Fintech Storm India Summit" aims at bringing together host of Fintech start-ups and also the investors where UPI platform is likely to be one of the exciting areas to be discussed".

Speaking on the collaboration, Ms Arifa Khan, MD & CEO of Genius Incubator Ltd & founder of "Fintech Storm" & "Europe-India Conclave" Series said her firm would support NPCI on research on relevance of Blockchain in Indian Payments Market.

India Financial Forum on 12 May will focus debate on themes such as Digital Banking, Banking APIs, Online Lending, Peer to Peer funding, instant and seamless payments (between banks, wallets , ecommerce marketplaces and telecom networks as well as cross border remittances), financial inclusion for the unbanked, Blockchain applications in and outside of Financial services, and other emerging technologies such as Big data, IOT, Artificial intelligence for Robo Advisory to help Banking industry evaluate the opportunities & threats and to shape and channelise their response to the environment fraught with change. USAID will speak on successful experiments in financial inclusion at the summit.

"We are delighted to have the support of an independent and objective non-profit organisation such as NPCI whose objective is to accelerate innovation in payments, which affects the banking and cards industry. Mr A.P Hota is a veteran CEO who enjoys the confidence of the entire banking industry in India, and having his buy-in for a collaborative R&D effort is a huge advantage. We are excited about the promise of technologies such as Blockchain - having built strong connections with Blockchain experts & innovators in Europe, and USA. We would now explore its applications in industries such as education, testing & certification, healthcare management, supply chain management, and authentication of luxury goods and high value collectibles such as art, antiques and jewellery -  in India where the applications and use cases could be even more pronounced than in the west because of peculiar market conditions of an emerging economy and scope for drastic innovation.

"Our work as adviser on foreign investments and our affiliation with Central and State Govt. bodies further enhances our unique position to explore use-cases and pilot-test them. For example, Andhra Pradesh, along with Telangana and Karnataka, is one of the pioneer states in digitising land registry records. Exploring distributed public shared ledger for land registry would be an interesting experiment for the technology savvy Govt of A.P. We had a positive response from the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Shri Chandra Babu Naidu and his team of Ministers whom we met on their March visit to London seeking investments from UK. USD2 billion has been earmarked by A.P state just to implement IT,  and the state has 2 of the 100 smart cities in the country, and 1000s of kilometres of coastline and port cities under development.

We met Port authorities of A.P and Inland Waterways Authority of India at Maritime Investor Summit - a landmark summit hosted by visionary Union Minister Shri Nitin Gadkari 14-16 April in Mumbai which attracted MOUs for an estimated Rs12 lakh crore investments that will boost India's growth rate.  It is my privilege to be working with the regulator and the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways to find ways to bring in foreign funding at ultra competitive costs, given my track record as an investment banker at Credit Suisse and UBS dealing with private equity firms and institutional investors. Shri Nitin Gadkari has been invited as Chief Guest to inaugurate the 2-day Fintech Storm India Summit on 12 May.  In parallel to infrastructure funding advisory, we will submit proposals to Govt of Andhra Pradesh to harness the potential of new innovations and technologies in building the brand new capital Amravati. We will continue dialogues with SEBI, RBI, and Banking CEOs to explore opportunities" elaborated Andhra-born Arifa Khan on the various promising developments in 2016.

Speaking on her long-term vision to engage more robustly with key decision makers in India, Ms Arifa Khan affirmed plans for hosting recurring annual series - Fintech Storm India Summit in Mumbai in summer and Europe-India Conclave in New Delhi in winter.

"We propose to raise investment for this exciting opportunity and to kickstart R&D work that will benefit not only the BFSI sector but the Indian economy as a whole. We will seek to carry out collaborative research work with Technology Solution providers (for example IBM, Linux Foundation, Microsoft , Blockchain firms and ISPIRIT, that was behind the development of Aadhar's UID project and UPI in India, for the benefit of the Indian market. My personal interest is to evangelise explosive high growth technologies in India and put India on the pedestal of high tech nations with double digit growth!" Ms Arifa Khan expressed her unbounded optimism for the latest project.

Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) and Niti Ayog are keen to promote entrepreneurship amongst youth, and are participants at the Fintech Storm India Summit.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is keen to study various Fintech opportunities from the regulatory risk perspective and especially to explore Blockchain's potential. The RBI think-tank has extended an invitation to Ms Arifa Khan to deliver a talk on Blockchain on 5th May. She is looking forward to deliberations with various banks which will culminate in engaging debates at the 2 day summit on 12-13 May and beyond.

Arifa Khan further listed the benefits for startups looking to raise funding - "Startups and SMEs have a lot to look forward to at the summit as India Funding Conclave on 13 May is dedicated for startups & SMEs (from all sectors not just Fintech ) who can mingle with VCs, investors, lenders, NBFCs in a first of its kind attempt to give entrepreneurs plenty of choice - in funding. I thought there was a gap in India to host these kind of 'investor mela' and enabling forums, and the summit has lined up over 20 investors so far such as Matrix, IDG Ventures, Saif partners, Lok Capital, Aspada etc. This is Fintech Storm's tribute to Mumbai, the star factory which groomed my passion for financial services early in my career, and to Startup-India initiative launched by the Govt. which is a fillip to our young innovators and job creators".

With regular round-tables, stirring debates, and networking forums such as these to inspire CEOs of the established order and young dreamers and risk-takers alike, Fintech Storm is poised to become a globally relevant think-tank for those who want to stay ahead of the learning curve in banking, financial services and payments.

About Fintech Storm
Fintech Storm is supported by PR Partner PRNewswire, event research partner Majestic MRSS, Thought leadership partner Gateway House, NPCI,  Knowledge Partners IIT Madras, ISPIRIT and outreach partners Nasscom 10000 startups, TIE Mumbai & TIE Delhi, Innov8, SME Joinup, Harvard and Wharton Clubs of India, Pune Open Coffee Meetup, Indian Startups, For Press Release, Fintech Labs etc.

Fintech Storm India Summit 12-13 May 2016 Mumbai
Venue: Hotel St Regis, 462 Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai

Dates

India Financial Forum - 12 May 2016 - 9:00am to 6:00 pm
Networking Dinner - 12 May 2016 7:00pm - 11:30pm
India Funding Conclave - 13 May 2016 - 9:00am to 6:00pm

300 delegates
50+ speakers
10+ VC firms
50+ investors
30+ SMEs and Startups seeking funding

Agenda Day 12 May 2016

- Digital Banking and the Way head
- The Evolving Payments Landscape
- Online Lending, Alternative Finance, Peer to Peer Funding Marketplaces
- Financial Inclusion, Microfinance
- The Regulatory Landscape
- Vision 2025 for Financial Services
- Futuristic Banking & Technologies such as AI, Robo Advisory
- Marketplaces and 2 Sides Platforms
- Open Bank APIs in Digital Ecosystems
- Crypto Currencies & Blockchain
- Shared Economy- Digital Ecosystems

Agenda Day 13 May 2016

- Investor Workshops
- Learning from Global Success Stories
- Innovators and Disruptors
- Corporate Finance for SMEs

Blockchain Workshop 13 May 2016 (parallel session)

Review the full program at http://fintechstormindia.com/agenda

List of Speakers, Investors & Participants: http://fintechstormindia.com/speakers

For full details visit http://fintechstormindia.com/overview

Website: http://fintechstormindia.com

http://fintechstorm.com/Mumbai-2016

Tickets: http://in.explara.com/in/indiafundingconclave

For ticketing queries contact ashok@explara.com

For sponsorship and exhibitor queries contact arifa@fintechstorm.com

Past event site for Europe India Conclave Dec 2015: http://FintechStorm.com/europe-india

Media Contact
Arifa Khan
Mananging Director
Genius Incubator Ltd.
Contact email: arifa@fintechstorm.com
Contact number: 09619703635
Destinationindia@geniusincubator.com