Where do the events of 2024 leave India’s fintech ecosystem?

While the fintech opportunity is said to have grown 6X in the past ten years, the incessant regulatory challenges as well as concerns around profitability have hamstrung even the most scaled-up and capitalised companies.

Prominent examples from the past year include the derailing of Paytm’s banking arm after the RBI intervention on compliance lapses, while Sachin Bansal’s Navi Finserv saw a disruption in its lending business due to similar action against digital lenders.

On the other hand, changes by SEBI left the likes of Groww and Zerodha staring at a bearish future.

When it comes to the fortunes of PhonePe, CRED, Google Pay and others, profitability is the single-biggest hurdle in the way, even as the UPI opportunity has grown beyond Indian territory and expanded overseas.

Fintech Predictions For 2025

Considering the mixed bag that was the past year for Indian fintech, will we see the scales tilt towards a particular outlook in 2025? Will fintech startups make the most of the IPO opportunity, and which areas will see the biggest disruption from AI?

These are some of the most pressing questions for fintech startups today — especially as they deal with the entry of giants such as Jio Financial Services, and competition from regulated banks also eyeing super app success.

More Reverse Flipping & IPOs In Store For Fintech

The bull run for the Indian public market in the past few years has opened the doors for more new age tech stocks listings in the coming year, with the fintech ecosystem expected to take the front seat.

Last year, we saw MobiKwik join Paytm, Fino and PB Fintech in the public markets, and now the likes of Pine Labs, Groww, Razorpay among others are looking to get there too. Besides NBFCs Aye Finance and Avanse Financial Services who have already filed for IPOs, we can potentially see listings of PayU, InCred and Pine Labs this year.

As a result, several of these startups are in the process of flipping back to India, while Groww has already redomiciled to India from the US.

“For fintechs with a majority India market focus, it is definitely pragmatic to be domiciled in India and debut their listings here first. We are seeing some of India’s largest private fintechs in the process of changing their domicile for this purpose, and this re-shoring is a sound strategy for them to continue building for the long term. Their future will be India first,” 3one4 Capital’s founding partner Pranav Pai opines.

Meanwhile, lendingtech unicorn Fibe’s cofounder and CEO Akshay Mehrotra sees more fintech........

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