The India FinTech Diaries

In this future-forward episode of India FinTech Diaries, we sit down with Aishwary Gupta, Global Head of Payments at Polygon Labs, to unpack what comes after UPI. With stablecoin legislation gaining traction globally and Web3 infrastructure maturing rapidly, this episode explores what India’s next-generation payment rails could look like in a programmable, tokenized future.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

🪙 The role of stablecoins & CBDCs

⚙️ Why UPI needs a programmable upgrade

🤖 Agentic commerce & AI-powered banking

🌍 How Polygon is scaling payments globally

Contact Polygon Labs

In this episode of India FinTech Diaries, we dive into the transformation of insurance distribution with Anand Prabhudesai, co-founder of Turtlemint. Anand shares how Turtlemint is breaking down the complexities of insurance, making it accessible for millions across India through technology and a vast agent network. From revolutionizing how insurance is sold to training a new generation of financial advisors, Turtlemint has been at the forefront of India's insurtech revolution.

Key Highlights:

💡 Simplifying Insurance: Turtlemint empowers agents with tools and training to make insurance easier for customers, especially in remote areas.

🚀 The Power of Technology: Learn how Turtlemint’s platform provides comparisons, digital journeys, and seamless integrations to empower agents and customers.

🌍 Growth and Milestones: With over 4 lakh agents in 18,000+ pin codes, Turtlemint has made insurance more accessible than ever, benefiting millions across the country.

Tune in to learn how Turtlemint is reshaping the insurance landscape and making financial security a reality for many.

Contact Turtlemint

In this episode of India FinTech Diaries, we explore the complexities of cross-border payments with Movin Jain, co-founder of Skydo. Skydo has been at the forefront of simplifying global transactions for Indian businesses, providing seamless B2B payment solutions to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across various sectors. Movin shares insights on how Skydo is breaking down the barriers of traditional banking, making international payments faster, cheaper, and more transparent.

Key Highlights:

💡 Challenges in Cross-Border Payments: Movin explains the complexity of global transactions, from financial crime risks to the high costs imposed by traditional banks.

🚀 Skydo’s Solution: Learn how Skydo’s virtual foreign currency accounts are helping Indian businesses receive payments from over 100 countries, eliminating the need for local bank accounts.

🌍 The Future of B2B Payments: Movin shares his vision for the future, from expanding Skydo’s customer base to leveraging regulatory approvals to foster trust in the platform.

Tune in to this insightful episode to understand how Skydo is transforming the landscape of cross-border payments for Indian SMEs.

Contact Skydo

In the second episode in the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2025 podcast series, we are joined by Pallavi Shrivastava, co-founder of Progcap, to explore the critical role of MSMEs (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises) in driving India's economic growth. As India sets its sights on achieving Viksit Bharat—a vision of a developed India—MSMEs are positioned as a key driver of this transformation. However, access to finance and digitization remain significant challenges for many small businesses.

Pallavi shares her expert perspective on how fintech innovation is bridging these gaps, empowering MSMEs with much-needed access to formal credit and digitization solutions. The episode delves into the recent budget announcements aimed at boosting MSMEs, fintech innovations reshaping access to finance, and the challenges faced by small businesses in adopting new technology.

This episode offers a comprehensive look at the future of MSMEs and how they are central to the Viksit Bharat vision.

Key Highlights:

💡 The role of MSMEs in India's Viksit Bharat vision

📊 Recent budget initiatives for MSMEs

💻 How fintech is transforming access to finance for small businesses

⚡ The challenges of rapid growth and digitization

🔮 The future outlook for MSMEs in India

Tune in for a detailed conversation on the future of MSMEs and their impact on India's economic landscape!

Contact DLAI

Carrying on with the tradition of episodes with DLAI, this year we tried something different and worked on recording episodes after their Annual Fintech Conclave. In the first episode in this series, we explore the dynamic shifts in consumer finance with Anuj Kacker, co-founder of Freo. Anuj shares his perspective on how the fintech industry has evolved in the last five years, from post-pandemic recovery to the increasing importance of financial inclusion and managing risks. We covered the following with Anuj:

💡 Post-Pandemic Growth

📈 Demand Shifts

🔍 Risk Management in lending

🚀 The Future of Finance

Tune in to this episode to hear more about the future of consumer finance and the role fintech will play!

Contact DLAI

In our first episode of 2025, we dive into the world of open-loop transit payments with payments industry veteran, Manoj Sugathan. With over 30 years of experience, Manoj has played a pivotal role in driving contactless payment solutions across the Asia-Pacific region. We explore the future of public transportation payments and how open-loop systems are revolutionizing the way commuters travel globally.

Key Highlights:

🔄 Closed-loop vs. Open-loop Systems: Manoj explains the difference between transit-exclusive payment cards and open-loop systems that allow you to use your everyday contactless cards or mobile wallets to pay for public transport.

🌍 Global Adoption: Open-loop transit payments have been successfully implemented in cities like Singapore, London, and New York, with more than 900 programs worldwide.

🚇 India’s Opportunity: As India rapidly expands its metro networks, the country is uniquely positioned to implement open-loop systems from day one, offering seamless travel across cities with just one contactless card.

Tune in to the full episode to learn more about the future of transit payments and how it can transform the commuting experience!

Contact Manoj

In this special end-of-the-year episode of, we sit down with Neha Singh, co-founder of Tracxn, to discuss the major funding trends that shaped the fintech landscape in 2024 and what lies ahead for 2025. Tracxn, one of the leading data intelligence platforms for private market research, tracks over 3.3 million entities across industries globally. With such a vast pool of data, Neha provides invaluable insights into the current state of fintech funding and the future of this rapidly evolving industry. In conversation we discussed:

📉 2024 Fintech Funding Trends

💰 Top Sectors for Funding

🚀 What’s Ahead for 2025?

Listen to the full episode to gain more insights into what 2025 holds for fintech!

Contact Tracxn

In our next episode in the SamvAAd 2024 series, we dive deep into the evolving world of Open Finance with Kiran Gopinath, the founder of Open Finance Connect. Open Finance is reshaping financial services globally by enabling consumers to control and share their financial data for better products and services and India and the AA ecosystem is at the forefront of it.

Here are the key highlights:

💡 What is Open Finance?

🌍 Global Leaders in Open Finance

🥇 India's Open Finance Success

🔮 Looking Ahead to 2030

Tune in to learn how Open Finance is transforming financial services and how AA can play key role in powering the next billion Open Finance users

Contact Kiran

In the latest episode, we explore the journey of India's account aggregator (AA) framework—a consent-based data-sharing platform transforming the financial landscape. We caught up with B.G. Mahesh, CEO of Sahamati and Shallu Kaushik, Digital Head of Tata Capital to discuss the rapid growth of India's account aggregator framework, and to help unpack the progress made since launch. We discussed:

📈 Growth of the AA ecosystem in India

🪙 Lending and wealth management as key use cases

💰 Benefits of AA adoption

🔮 Challenges and future adoption

Tune in to the full episode to learn more about its impact and future potential

Contact Sahamati

In the latest episode, we dive deep into the world of loyalty programs and their intersection with payments with special guest Rishi Batra, Co-Founder and COO of Twid. India’s loyalty market is rapidly growing, and Twid is at the forefront of redefining how consumers engage with rewards. In this episode we discuss:

📈 Loyalty trends in India

🪙 Pay with points innovation

⚔️ Challenges in building a reward network

💰 Economics of loyalty

🔮 Future of loyalty

Tune in to the full episode to learn more about the exciting innovations shaping the future of loyalty in India.

Contact Twid

In this latest episode , we delve into the fascinating world of co-branded credit cards and the future of credit in India. Our guest, Ramanathan RV, co-founder of Hyperface, shares his expert insights on the evolution of credit cards and fintech solutions. From his journey at BankBazaar and JustPay to launching Hyperface, Ram takes us through the intricacies of credit card ecosystems and the digital transformation of India’s financial sector. We discuss:

🔥 The Rise of Co-Brands in India

💸 Unique value of Co-Brands

💻 Technology’s role in Co-Brands

🏆 What it takes to win in Co-Brands

🔮 Future of Credit and Co-Brands in India

Listen in for some interesting insights on Co-Brands in India.

Contact Ram 

In our next episode on AI, we spoke with Ankit Ratan, Co-Founder Signzy. Ankit helped us understand and answer the important question of how GenAI is helping banks with compliance and regulators with monitoring compliance. In our conversation we discussed:

🤖 GenAI and Financial services use cases in India

⚙️ SupeTech and GenAI

🔑 Key considerations for navigating compliance & AI

💡 Signzy and AI

Listen to this episode for insights on the intersection of GenAI and compliance

Contact Ankit

In our latest episode on AI, we spoke with Anant Gupta, FSI Head, Google Cloud India to better understand how AI use cases are implemented on the cloud and how financial services firms could leverage the cloud to bring AI use cases to life. During our conversation we discussed:

🤖 GenAI and Financial services use cases in India

⚙️ Implementing AI use cases on Google Cloud

🔑 Key considerations for implementing AI

💡 Parting thoughts on evolution of AI use cases in India

Listen to this episode for perspectives on how GenAI is changing financial services in India

Contact Anant

Generative AI is rapidly transforming many industries across the globe and financial services is one of them. To better understand the impact of GenAI and AI in general on the financial services space, our next few episodes will be focused on speaking to companies and leaders in this space. To begin unpacking this topic we spoke with Raoul Nanavati, Co-founder & CEO, Navana. Navana.ai empowers businesses to create user-friendly digital interfaces for the next billion and is actively working with financial services firms to help them interact with their customers in regional languages. During our conversation we discussed:

🗺️ Raoul’s journey to starting Navana

🫰 Understanding LLMs

💡 Cracking the difficult problem of voice LLMs for Indic languages

🧰 Product overview, traction and technology

💰 Business model of Navana

🧭 2024 for Navana

Listen to this episode for perspectives on how GenAI is changing financial services in India

Contact Navana

Did you know that 95% of women did not access any financial platform? To understand what are some of the barriers to financial product adoption among women and how fintechs can help solve this, we thought that it would be a timely topic to deep dive into on International Women’s day. To help us unpack this topic we spoke with Ridhi Doongursee, Co-founder LXME. During our conversation we discussed:

🗺️ Ridhi’s journey to starting LXME

🫰 Challenges for financial adoption

💡 How LXME is solving adoption challenges

🧰 Product overview, traction and technology

💰 Business model of LXME

🧭 2024 for LXME

Listen to this episode for perspectives on WealthTech in 2024

Contact LXME

This Friday is International Women’s Day, and we thought that in our next episode in the DLAI Fintech Podcast Series, we would discuss the important issue of the credit gap between genders and how we can bridge it. To shed more light on the issue and provide insights on solutions, we spoke with Puneet Gupta, Co-Founder of Kaleidofin. We discussed:

💸 Why do rural women not have access to affordable Finance?

🌏 Solutions seen Internationally and parallels to India

🏦 MFIs and credit access

💹 How Impact Investing can make a difference

⚖️ Imperatives for stakeholders

Join us for this this episode on the eve of the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2024

Contact DLAI

In our next episode in the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2024 podcast series, we examine Artificial Intelligence and how it's powering new and old use cases in financial services. To unpack this, we were joined by Anuj Kacker, Co-Founder of Freo and Neeraj Gupta, Managing Director of Branch International. We discussed:

• Use cases of AI in Financial Services
• Challenges faced by AI in adoption
• Way ahead for AI Adoption

Join us for this discussion on how cutting edge technology is influencing financial service as we count down to the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2024

Contact DLAI

We are back with a special podcast series in collaboration with the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2024. In the first episode in the series we caught up with Jatinder Handoo, CEO of DLAI on the recently announced framework for Self Regulatory Organizations (SRO) and its implications for Fintechs. We discussed:

• What is an SRO?
• Salient features of the SRO framework
• Benefits for the Fintech ecosystem

Join us for this timely conversation as we count down to the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2024

Contact DLAI

In the last few years the entire landscape of retail investing in India has changed. From being able to invest in stocks at the click of a button to opening an FD digitally to being able to invest in new avenues like invoice factoring, P2P lending, alternative assets etc. the Indian retail investor has come a long way. We spoke with Satyen on what’s changed in the investing landscape and how Cube Wealth is providing a platform that integrates a lot of these trends. During our conversation we discussed:

🗺️ Satyen’s journey from Silicon Valley to Fintech in India

🫰 The generational shift in investing behaviour in India

💡 The problem statement that Cube Wealth addresses

🧰 Product overview, traction and technology

💰 Business model of Cube Wealth

🧭 How Cube Wealth approaches roadmaps

Listen to this episode for perspectives on WealthTech in 2024

Contact Cube Wealth

2023 was indeed a roller-coaster year for Fintech in India, with several interesting developments across the entire spectrum of Fintech Subsectors in India. To recap the most interesting and important developments of the year we caught up with Navin Surya, Fintech Thought Leader, Mentor and Investor. We spoke with Navin about:

💰 Fintech Funding in 2023

💸 Digital lending in 2023

📒 Changing fintech models

⚙️ Account Aggregators & ONDC

🏦 RBI & Fintech regulation

💡 Fintech models to watchout for in 2024

Contact Navin

Last week the SENSEX breached the historic 70,000 mark. This week was a different story, with the market displaying high volatility and even losing 931 pts on 19 Dec. With this amount of volatility, what avenues are available for investors seeking more steady and sedate returns? To discuss this we caught up with Saurabh Jain, Co-founder of Stable Money. During the podcast we discussed:

💡 The problem that Stable Money Solves

⚙️ How it works

📒 Product, Customers, Technology and traction

💰 Revenue model

🚩 Future roadmap

Contact Saurabh

As digital payments have expanded across India, increasing penetration of payment acceptance across India has become all the more important. To discuss the current state of the payment acceptance landscape and how acquirers can continue to be relevant, we caught up with Ketan Patel, Co-founder and CEO of Mswipe. We spoke to Ketan about:

💸 The current state of acquiring landscape in India

📈 Products, growth and traction of Mswipe

🛤️ Road ahead for Mswipe

Contact mSwipe

In our latest episode, we delve into the world of digital commerce and explore the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), a revolutionary concept that has the potential to transform the ecommerce landscape in India. Our guest, Susmit Patodia, Director at Antler India, provides expert insights on the disruptive power of ONDC and its implications for both ecommerce and fintech in the country. Join us as we unpack the ONDC framework and discuss its key features, benefits, and challenges. From the potential to reduce transaction costs and increase interoperability to the potential to create 100 unicorns, we cover a wide range of topics that will be of interest to anyone interested in the future of digital commerce in India.

• What problem is ONDC trying to solve
• What ONDC is
• How does it work
• What does the ONDC landscape look like
• What the opportunity for Fintech is
• Why you should be gung-ho about ONDC

Don't miss this informative and thought-provoking conversation on what could be a $80bn+ Opportunity!

Additional reading

In our final episode in this collaboration with the Digital Lenders Association of India (DLAI) on the occasion of the #DLAIFintechConclave23, we caught up with Presha Paragash, CEO of Credit Saison India. Presha had a candid conversation with us on:

• What’s exciting about India as a market for Digital Lending
• Key highlights from the Fintech Conclave
• Her top takeaways from the event

Join us for this for this wrap up of the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2023

Contact DLAI

Data protection and privacy are the forefront with the recent guidelines on digital lending from the RBI and impending Digital Data Protection Bill. To help understand this crucial area better, in our fourth episode in this collaboration with the Digital Lenders Association of India (DLAI) on the occasion of the #DLAIFintechConclave23, we caught up with Prashanth Ramdas and Supratim Chakraborty, Partners, Khaitan & Co. In addition to discussing the whitepaper “Interplay between Data Protection and Digital Lending” that was co-authored by DLAI and Khaitan & Co, we also discussed:

• What Data Protection and Privacy means
• Implications of recent guidelines by the RBI
• Overview and salient features of the draft Digital Data Protection Bill
• What Fintechs can do be ahead of the curve on compliance
• And more …

Join us for this very timely conversation on data protection and privacy as we wrap up the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2023

Contact Prashanth

In our third episode in this collaboration with the Digital Lenders Association of India (DLAI) on the occasion of the #DLAIFintechConclave23, we caught up with Anurag Jain, Founder of KredX and Executive Committee Member, DLAI, We discussed:

• What integrated or embedded finance means
• Use cases and value pools for integrated finance
• The role played by digital public goods
• Policy and regulatory support needed 
• And more …

Join us for this interesting conversation as we wrap up the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2023

Contact Anurag

In our second episode in this collaboration with the Digital Lenders Association of India (DLAI) on the occasion of the #DLAIFintechConclave23, we discussed the very important topic of financial inclusion and what it means for both consumers and small businesses. We caught up with Sucharita Mukherhjee, Co-founder and CEO, Kaleidofin and Manish Lunia, Co-founder Flexiloans as we discussed:

• What financial inclusion means for consumers and businesses
• How fintechs are helping address financial inclusion
• Challenges faced while addressing financial inclusion
• Impact on the next 100 million

Join us for this interesting conversation as we count down to the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2023 tomorrow

Contact Sucharita

We are kicking off 2023 with a special series collaboration with the Digital Lenders Association of India (DLAI) on the occasion of the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2023. In the first episode in the series we caught up with Sashank Rishyasringa, co-founder of axio and President of DLAI on what’s in store for digital lending in 2023. We discussed:

• What happened in 2022
• Themes and trends for 2023
• Wishlist for the regulator
• Top predictions for 2023

Join us for this interesting conversation as we count down to the DLAI Fintech Conclave 2023 !!!

Contact DLAI

This year has been a roller coaster ride for Indian Fintech. Join us as we take a look back at the Year that was with our special guest, Osborne Saldanha from EMVC. In the episode we discuss:

• Funding and the funding environment
• Regulatory changes in the year
• M & A, new fintech ideas and the macro environment
• Our views on what 2023 holds for Indian Fintech

Take a walk down memory lane with us as 2022 draws to a close. And a very happy new year from India Fintech Diaries !!!

Contact Osborne

Over the last five years UPI has revolutionised how Indians pay digitally. Last month, UPI actually crossed 7 billion transactions in a single month !!! This week we have Anup Nayar, CEO - Domestic, In-Solutions Global to discuss the meteoric rise of UPI and how firms like In-Solutions Global (ISG) are playing a key role in that journey. In our conversation with Anup we discuss:

• Anup’s background and overview of ISG
• Overview of UPI
• Factors leading to UPI’s growth
• New UPI innovations like UPI credit and UPI Lite
• Role played by ISG in the ecosystem

Do listen to this episode to get an insider's view on the UPI journey.

Contact Anup

Continuing in our series on Fintech Investing we caught up with Melissa Frakman, CEO & Founding Partner of Emphasis Ventures. In this episode with Melissa, we discuss :

• Melissa’s background and long standing links with India
• Her views on the evolution of Indian Fintech
• Interesting comparison & contracts with US Fintech
• Her approach to early stage venture investing
• Her views on the road ahead for Fintech in India

Do listen to this episode to get a fresh take on Fintech investing in India.

Additional Reading

Raghuram Rajan Committee (2007), A Hundred Small Steps

Contact Melissa