Underlining the key role Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) are playing in meeting the diverse financial requirements of consumers, the 2nd NBFC100 Tech Summit was held on Thursday in Bengaluru. Experts favoured technologically advanced NBFCs on the occasion.
Witnessing a strong presence of a galaxy of who’s who of the Banking Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector, experts representing NBFCs, Small Finance Banks, Payments Banks, IT and other sectors participated in various sessions of the conclave and shared their vision.
Rajkumar Srivastava, Information Technology (IT) Advisor to Government, Department of IT, BT, Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka, and Vivek Jaiswal, General Manager, Karnataka Telecom Circle, BSNL, inaugurated the 2nd NBFC100 Tech Summit held at The Lalit Ashok hotel.
They also shared their thoughts about financial services.
Organised by Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd, the summit aimed to cover the factors affecting the rapid growth and upcoming opportunities within the NBFCs. The Banking & Finance Post, Asia’s premier bi-monthly magazine, published by Elets Technomedia, was the print partner of the summit.
Various participants on Thursday highlighted the need for technology upgradation and requirement for security safeguards in NBFCs.
“Use of technology should completely depend on the genre of institution,” said Subrata Gupta, Managing Director, NABARD Financial Services Ltd while explaining the significance of technology in financial entities.”
“If I have to run a Small Finance Bank, I might use Microsoft Office to manage all the relevant data. But if I am thinking of going large scale and upgrading to bank, I will have to think of software that will help in accounting the data, core banking solutions and transactions.”
Stating that our role is very close to the technology adoption, because that decides our future task, Gupta stated: “There have been a lot of issues that hindered the adaptability of technology in financial institutions. Majority of it is due to the lack of proper infrastructural facilities.
“We at NABARD Financial Services lend money at the lowest possible rates and also provide the facility of mobile application for convenient transactions,” he added.
While NBFCs are gradually gaining popularity among consumers for their diverse credit offering, security pertaining to the entity still needs to match with the dynamic financial environment.
“Today’s attacks are stealthy and evasive, designed to bypass traditional defenses like firewall, anti-virus and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS). That’s why you need Advanced Malware Protection,” said Vishak Raman, Director, Security Business, Cisco India and SAARC.
“The nature of attacks has changed completely in the recent times. Attackers now target the most popular websites and then plant the malicious stuff in the between the updates.”
Despite the importance of safety, majority of the financial institutions are yet to armour themselves against the malicious activities.
“It is important for every organisation to believe that spending on security is not an additional cost. Financial Institutions such as NBFCs make use of micro devices such as laptops and mobile phones. If transactions via these end points grow in sync with technology, the necessity to ensure security to the network and the customer is essential,” said Murtaza Bhatia, Business Head – Security Solutions & Services, Dimension Data India.
“Enterprises need a strong foundation of consistent policies and behaviours, across a diverse IT landscape, along with the agility to respond effectively to new security challenge and inevitable security incidents,” he added.
Meanwhile, eminent leaders namely Subrata Gupta, Managing Director, NABARD Financial Services Ltd, Ashwin Khorana, Chief Technology Officer, Janalakshmi Financial Services, Hardika Shah, Founder and CEO, Kinara Capital, Nikhil Bandi, Chief Information Officer, Kinara Capital, Suresh A Shan, Head-Innovation and Future Technology, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd., Dominic Vijay Kumar, Associate Vice President-IT, Art Affordable Housing Finance India Ltd and many others participated in the summit.
Popular brands like Dimension Data and Cisco, India supported the summit as Premium Security Partner. RupeePower was the Fintech Partner of the summit.
