Building digital public goods is the next big opportunity for India after UPI: Infosys’ Kris Gopalakrishnan

Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan said building digital public goods is the next big opportunity in India after UPI. At the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai, Gopalakrishnan stressed that the real transformation opportunity lies in building at scale. “Digital public goods are clearly the next big opportunity. This is a transformation that the industry will move towards which is why government and regulators have to be a part of this journey. Vertical by vertical we'll have to make sure that this transformation happens,” Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman, Axilor Ventures and Co-founder of Infosys, said.

He adds that he’s very optimistic about the Fintech opportunity in India. “The government is fully behind it, regulators work with platforms to ensure trust is built into the system, we have low-cost telecom infrastructure, etc. This combination of factors doesn't exist anywhere else in the world,” he said.

We should set our goals very high, he adds, “With the entire e-commerce changing with ONDC, we’re clearly moving towards a different model. It will provide a space for entrepreneurs to create scalable businesses. India wants to create a new model of development especially in the digital payments space. It will create a new architecture on how this infrastructure will foster innovation,” he said.

The key, he said, is to democratise access to payments. “It can only happen with industry actively participating with the government in building this architecture. This is a far superior way of building digital architecture,” he said, giving the example of recently released Kisan credit cards that can be used to access land records. “The government can standardise it. It takes 7 seconds to get the card but used to take 3 months. It creates underlying infrastructure and public good and will benefit customers in getting credit,” he said.

He adds that payment gateways like Gpay have enabled 80 per cent of adult Indians to do digital transactions. “They’ve enabled the inclusion agenda for the country. Can we think of ways in which we can increase availability of services for the majority of Indians? If you are a part of that journey, you will stand to benefit because you will have built a relationship with them. Right now, it’s available to just 50-100 million people whereas the opportunity is in billions,” he said.

He added that the ability to show how well a company can help the individual along with different journeys that they take will make all the difference and that's where he will place his bets on. “I look at how a service provider can guide the customers in various journeys that they embark on using vernacular languages, using AI, etc. That’s what I look for while investing. The reason why payments took off is ease of use. You have to make sure that that experience is as seamless as possible to reach the maximum number of people. In every industry there’s an opportunity to disrupt,” Gopalakrishnan said.

India has an abundance of talent, he adds. “Indian IT talent is some of the highest paid in the country but compared to global standards, it's cheaper. There are five million people working in various organisations globally sitting here in India. One needs to think of innovation at scale,” he said.

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