Visakhapatnam: Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has said that Vizag will be developed as an innovation valley and be one among the top three fintech centres in the world.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Vizag Fintech Festival in Vizag city on Tuesday, Mr Naidu said the AP government was going all out to create the best ecosystem for Fintech development in the city and it was giving incentives to entrepreneurs in the field.
Stating that he was a strong believer in technology, Mr Naidu said that currently it was a very inspiring time and the Internet too plays a key role in the fourth industrial revolution. He said Fintech was a part of technology and knowledge and innovation was a continuous process. He said leaders should use technology to achieve good results.
Vizag had hosted the first edition of the Fintech festival around two years ago and many established companies, as well as start-ups, were being drawn to the city as a result of the festival, he added.
The TD government had been taking numerous steps to promote the IT sector, particularly block chain technology, cyber security and a few others to create more employment, he said.
Emphasising that the TD government had been working for good governance by adopting the technology, Mr Naidu said, “Visible governance and invisible government” was their motto and their ultimate objective was to make all government tran-sactions online and integrate the data to provide the best possible governance. The CM has also mentioned that he had invited IT entrepreneurs from across the globe to assist his government in their endeavour.
Minister for Information Technology Nara Lokesh said that business was a challenge in the modern era and innovations would play a key role in the gro-wth of any sector. Mr Lokesh said that Vizag had attracted some established start-ups due to the TD government’s efforts. “Fintech is one of our initiatives started in 2016 which has now attracted world-class companies in the last two years. The AP government has been implementing several IT devices. For instance, core data authority was developed to maintain digital records and AP was the first to launch e-Pragati platform and we have been investing in start-ups and children sitting in remote areas can launch their innovative ideas,” he said.
CM: AP expecting Rs 500 cr investments
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said the AP government is exp-ecting an investment of up to '500 crore in financial technologies (fintech) sector over the next two yea-rs.
The CM added that this should generate around 50,000 employment openings.
The fintech valley has seen about '150 crore investment over the last two years since its establishment. Mr Naidu said they are hoping to get another 75 companies started in the state. The state government would develop Vizag as a hub for Fintech companies and start-ups like developing technologies digital payments, block-chain, cloud, data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, the Chief Minister said.
On Tuesday, US-based Cardylytics, Whub, SOSA, Singex, Wadhwani Foundation, FinTech Association of Hong Kong, Bizforce, HDFC Bank signed the memorandum of understandings (MoUs) with the AP government to set up their operations.
The state government has been adopting total integration of technology to improve the delivery mechanism to increase the satisfaction level of people which stands at 76 per cent now, Mr Naidu added.
