There’s a mega drive to make this Indian City a FinTech Hub 

A mega drive is being launched to attract investments in digital banking, data analytics, Blockchain and cyber security to make Visakhapatnam a prominent FinTech hub of India.

A FinTech Tower, the first of its kind was inaugurated at Cyber Valley, Rushikonda recently where six companies, including leading mobile commerce firm Paytm, GMS Securities, Blocktrust, Transaction Analytics and Knolscape, are launching their full-fledged operations shortly.

“Our plan is to create a world-class technology ecosystem with focus on encouraging startups in Visakhapatnam so as to make it FinTech capital of India. We are also facilitating collaborations between banking giants like HSBC and academic institutes to create a large pool of FinTech job-ready graduates,” Special Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister and IT Advisor J.A. Chowdary told The Hindu.

The State government is conducting roadshows across the country and overseas destinations to woo investors in FinTech after signing MoU with Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Investment opportunities will be explored at the CII Partnership Summit being held in the city on January 27 and 28.

According to a study made by National Association off Software Services Companies (NASSCOM), 400 companies were working in FinTech space with an investment of nearly $420 million in 2015. This is expected to grow by 1.7 per cent by 2020 making it $8 billion industry.

Post-demonetisation, FinTech has gained importance for which, Visakhapatnam is being developed as FinTech Valley. “We are expecting several big players to invest in FinTech in the city,” said AP Electronics and IT Agency (APEITA) CEO Srinivasa Moorthy.

Innovation Hub

Technology Research and Innovation Park (TRIP) at Rushikonda, which became popular as Sunrise Startup Village is being renamed as Innovation Hub to house some of the technology-based startups. Close to it, work is also progressing as per schedule on Millennium Tower. The tower will be fully operational by the year-end.

Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority and Software Technology Parks of India have also come to an understanding to speed up work on construction of a domain-specific tower at Siripuram in an area of 12 acres and an investment of Rs.62.70 crore to house domain-specific startups.

“All these developments will put Visakhapatnam in the FinTech map of the world,” said IT Association of AP (ITAAP) president Pena4 Software Solutions Director Ravi Eswarapu.