Department of financial services (DFS) secretary Nagaraju Maddirala on Tuesday (January 7) called fintech startups to “consistently” deliver innovative solutions to the financial services industry while “strictly” complying with regulations.

He made the comments while chairing a meeting with top executives and cofounders of major fintech startups in New Delhi. The meeting was attended by the likes of CRED founder Kunal Shah, Bipin Preet Singh of MobiKwik, Google Pay’s Sharath Bulusu, and representatives of BillDesk, Infibeam Avenues, and Razorpay.

In addition, industry bodies such as Startup Policy Forum, Payments Council of India and Digital Lenders Association of India also took part in the meeting.

“The engagement with partners from the startup and fintech ecosystem was designed to foster an open exchange of ideas aimed at elevating the fintech sector to a global standard,” said an official statement.

Lauding the rapid growth of the Indian fintech sector in the past decade, Maddirala underscored the need for further improving digital payment systems in rural and North-Eastern regions, particularly through UPI. He also called on the stakeholders to encourage “lending based on digital footprints” for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

As per the official statement, Maddirala highlighted the various initiatives taken by the Centre to create an enabling environment for the fintech sector.

The meeting was also attended by officials from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and electronics and IT ministry (MeitY).

The meeting comes as the homegrown fintech ecosystem continues to bear the brunt of funding winter. Despite being the most funded sector last year, , down 19% from $3.1 Bn in the preceding year. 2024 turned out to be the third consecutive year of funding decline for the fintech ecosystem.

However, the sector saw the total deal count rise 23% to 162 in 2024 from 132 in 2023. The fintech space also crossed the $30 Bn funding milestone (between 2014 and 2024) last year and added two new unicorns to its kitty – Moneyview and Perfios.

Besides, the likes of Finova Capital, Drip Capital and M2P stood out for bagging some of the biggest deals in 2024 (all in excess of $100 Mn).

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