The vibrant city of Chennai played host to an extraordinary confluence of fintech innovators, alternative lenders, and thought leaders during the IBM Presents 20th Elets NBFC100 Tech Summit, held in 2025. Organised by Elets Technomedia, in association with The Banking & Finance Post magazine as Knowledge Partner, the summit marked a defining moment in South India’s financial landscape.
Themed around “Trust, Transparency & Technology: The New Triad for NBFC Excellence.”, the summit brought together 150+ influential voices from NBFCs, MFIs, HFCs, fintechs, and regulators to reimagine responsible lending in an increasingly AI-first, trust-led digital economy.
Powerful Dialogues, Strategic Themes & South India’s Voice in Fintech
The event kicked off with a compelling Inaugural Panel Discussion on “Building Trust and Confidence in the Digital Lending Era”, moderated by Kumaran Sampath, Managing Director & CEO, Aegma Capital Services Pvt Ltd. The panelists explored risk governance, regulatory clarity, and transparency as key pillars of a credible NBFC future.
This was followed by a high-impact Panel on “AI-First Lending Models: The Next Frontier”, moderated by Pradeep Vasudevan, Segment Leader – Data & AI, IBM India & South Asia. Discussions centered on behavioural analytics, AI-driven underwriting, and predictive collections.
Other noteworthy sessions included:
- Fireside Chat: “Redefining Resilience in NBFCs: From Recovery to Readiness”
- Fireside Chat: “The Rise of Embedded Finance & API-Led NBFC Ecosystems”
- Trilogue Session: “Scaling Sales with Trust: The Vedika Credit Capital + Runo Story”
These sessions tackled real-time digital lending challenges, fraud risk, underwriting agility, embedded finance, and customer trust, offering actionable insights for India’s NBFC evolution.
Influential Voices, Game-Changing Dialogues
The summit was inaugurated with a welcome address by Dr. Ravi Gupta, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Elets Technomedia, who underlined the importance of collaboration, regulatory synergy, and innovation in enabling the NBFC sector to achieve the ambitious ₹60 trillion target by FY2026.
A stellar lineup of keynote speakers took the stage:
- Pradeep Vasudevan, Segment Leader, Data & AI, IBM India & South Asia, “AI-first lending is not just about automation; it’s about building trust, transparency, and responsible innovation. At IBM, we’re proud to partner with leading NBFCs to design scalable, fair, and explainable AI systems. Our deep expertise in data, AI, and cloud is helping shape the future of financial services in India.”
- Manjunatha Devadiga, Technology Sales Leader, Automation, IBM India & South Asia. “Today, resilience is not about reaction—it’s about anticipation. At IBM, we work closely with NBFCs like Muthoot Microfin to build intelligent automation frameworks that support business continuity, compliance, and customer trust. By integrating real-time analytics, workflow automation, and AI-led insights, NBFCs can shift from manual recovery to digital readiness. This is especially critical in sectors serving vulnerable and remote populations. True resilience is built before the crisis, not after it”.
- Rajsekhar Patnaik, Founder & CEO, Runo “Implementing Runo at VCCL was a challenge—moving from compliance-heavy, Google Sheets-based workflows to a unified tech platform. But with clear vision from leadership and a tech-embracing team, the transition happened in just 2 months. The same transformation is visible across businesses like mSwipe, where Runo helped fix low call-connect ratios and CRM underutilization using AI and analytics”.
Recognising Excellence: 9th Elets NBFC Excellence Awards
The day concluded with the 9th Elets NBFC Excellence Awards Ceremony, honouring innovators, institutions, and changemakers transforming South India’s credit ecosystem. From digital transformation and risk management to financial inclusion and CX, awardees represented the best of NBFC excellence.
Powering the Platform: Our Valued Partners
Presenting Partner
IBM
Silver Partner
Runo
Lending & Technology Partner
Aumnee
Escrow Partner
Castler
Supporting Partners
FIDC
Sa-Dhan
UPMA
Exhibitors
Reverie
Pine Labs
Heph
Finfactor
Canopi
PayRupik
MapmyIndia
Looking Ahead
Speaking at the summit, Dr. Ravi Gupta, Founder & CEO, Elets Technomedia & Editor-in-Chief of The Banking & Finance Post magazine, remarked,
“As the NBFC ecosystem journeys through digitisation and trust-building, Chennai has once again proven to be a nucleus of financial innovation in India. IBM Presents 20th Elets NBFC100 Tech Summit stands as a powerful testimony to the ideas, partnerships, and technologies shaping our collective future.”
The Elets NBFC100 Tech Summit continues to be India’s most trusted platform for advancing regulatory readiness, digital transformation, and inclusive growth across NBFCs and allied sectors.
Stay tuned for the next edition.
Explore more ; https://nbfc100.eletsonline.com/chennai/
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