GFF 2025: FM Sitharaman's four directives to fintech firms

GFF 2025: FM Sitharaman's four directives to fintech firms

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on October 7 has given four directive to the Indian fintech companies, including focusing on fundamentals. Here are the four directives:

Focus on fundamentals:

The Finance Minister has urged fintechs to focus on fundamentals such as revenue growth, innovate product offerings, improve risk and compliance capabilities.

"As many of the fintechs mature, they may be champions of meeting heightened expectations around financial performance and regulatory compliance while continuing to innovate in the case of emerging competition," Sitharaman said while addressing at the Global Fintech Fest 2025.

She added that focusing on fundamentals provides the cushion to continue innovating. Firms that balance innovation with business can pivot faster and stay more responsible, she said.

Focus on trust, safety and inclusion:

Sitharaman said that fintech ecosystem comes with real challenges. Digitalization introduces significant challenges in terms of cybersecurity breaches, digital fraud to unethical lending practices. As millions of citizens join the former financial system the focus must be to expand beyond innovation towards trust, safety and inclusion.

Regulations too must evolve ensuring that the FinTech revolution remains secure, responsible and sustainable for the long run.

Work with the regulator:

The Finance Minister urged fintechs to work with regulator, share insights with clients and from clients, and experiment so that next generation of fintechs can build on stronger and safer ground.

She added that responsible regulation is not a speedbump on roads, it is a seat belt for safe acceleration. Through the RBI regulations and the self-regulated organisational framework the government has created space for experimentation with accountability. These mechanisms encourage responsible innovation in a supervised setting, she said.

Cover gaps in financial ecosystem:

Fintech sector must help cover the remaining small gaps in the financial ecosystem, Sitharaman said.

"Bring your creativity and technological prowess to solve the persistent challenges of credit taxes for our MSMEs, financial inclusion for our women and youth workers and the development of innovative refinancing and sustainability-based products that can empower our transition to a low-carbon society," she added.