Chennai Aims to Boost FinTech with New Policies and Projects

Chennai has a rich history in banking, insurance, and finance. The Madras Bank, which later merged with SBI, was established in 1682, and the Madras Urban Cooperative Bank, India’s first cooperative bank, started in 1906. The city also launched the country’s first private mutual fund in 1993.
Chennai is a competitive hub for technology and has many IT majors in the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) sector. However, it lags behind Mumbai and GIFT City in Gujarat in merging finance with technology.

“Chennai offers a fantastic ecosystem for fintech. It has pioneering banks and NBFCs and a robust pool of tech talent in BFSI,” says Venkat Subramanyam, founder of Veda Corporate Advisors. “This fusion of finance and technology should place Chennai at the forefront of fintech. Hopefully, we will see more successes,” he adds.

In November 2021, the state government unveiled an exclusive FinTech Policy. Its main goal is to develop infrastructure to attract next-generation fintech firms.

“The financial services space is changing rapidly. Banks like IDFC First Bank and JP Morgan see themselves as tech companies with a banking license,” says Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, partner at Catalincs. “Born-digital companies like Google and Alibaba are also into financial services. The lines between traditional financial services, NBFCs, fintech, and techfin companies will blur, leading to more collaboration.”

Tamil Nadu’s fintech policy covers all types of financial services companies using technology as their platform. Ramamoorthy expects more fintech unicorns from Tamil Nadu and established financial services players to play a significant role.

In January, TN launched FinTech City, a 56-acre project with plots for financial institutions and a FinTech Tower for fintech startups and BFSI companies.

“State government is slightly late with the fintech focus. They should have built smaller infrastructure first,” says T R Suresh, General Partner at July Ventures. However, Sandeep Nanduri, MD of Tidco, says the project is on track and within city limits. They are offering developed plots for financial institutions, with recent auctions being successful.

Chennai has the technology and knowledge base for fintech, and the new policies and projects aim to harness this potential. has context menu