Azkivam’s CEO says: The income of fintech businesses that can enter the areas of serving fintechs in products related to large and small businesses and end users is estimated at 320 billion dollars by 2030, and the world economy is transitioning from fintechs to fintechs.
According to Iran digital economy annotation, Azkivam CEO Mohammad Mehdi Momeni gave a presentation on the history of fintechs in the world and Iran at the 20th Finup event titled Neobank, Digital Bank and Super Application and talked about the difference between fintechs and techfins.
He explained about this: Fintech stands for financial technology and refers to companies or innovations that aim to use technology to improve and change financial processes. Fintech companies typically use new technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning to make traditional financial services such as banking, payments, investing and lending more efficient and faster.
In contrast, Techfins refers to large technology companies that initially focused on technology, but have gradually moved into financial services. Here, the main focus is on technology and then financial services are added as a side product. According to Momeni, Apple and Amazon in the world and Snapp and Digikala in Iran are examples of techfins.
The CEO of Azkivam estimated the revenue of fintech businesses that can enter the fields of serving fintechs in products related to SME, enterprise and small users to the amount of 320 billion dollars by 2030 and quoted American economist David Brich as saying: The world economy is The transition is from fintechs to techfins.
Superapplications help to develop Direct Debit
In the continuation of the event, Payman CEO Mehdi Marefati spoke in a presentation about the history of all types of payments in the world and in Iran, and listed direct payment as one of the most enjoyable payments and said: Super-applications help a lot in the growth of the Direct Debit market and can accelerate the growth of the Direct Debit channel.
He continued: According to a 2024 survey, direct debit was the most convenient payment method in Switzerland and Spain; Also, this solution is one of the most common payment methods in European Union countries. The implementation of direct debit functionality in superapplications and neobanks has had a positive effect on the growth of users, and currently between 30 and 50% of their users use direct debit.
While emphasizing that direct debit is known as one of the most common payment methods in the UK, Marefati announced: in 2023, about 5 billion direct debit transactions have been made and 7 out of every 10 bills have been paid through direct debit.
In the continuation of the 20th Finup event, Shahram Sharif, the secretary of Fardaye Eghtesad technology group, participated in a panel titled “Borderless Banking”. Customer experience in the age of neobanks started his conversation with the panelists by asking about Iran’s position in digital banking.
In the middle of the road
Sadegh Sepandarand, University Lecturer and General Manager of Retail Banking and Small Businesses of Melli Bank, assessed Iran’s digital readiness in the banking sector as moderate and explained: We are not so behind like telephone taxis that we will suddenly be destroyed by a technology and the presence of technological actors, nor are we constantly updated like the communication industry. If we want to look at the issue with a complete view, we must consider all the actors and judge banking alongside other actors. In fact, our banks are neither modern nor far behind other countries.
Avoid the technological look
Hooman Amini, the CEO of DigiPay, also pointed to a balanced and rational view of credit issues and said: “Since I come from the heart of the industry, I believe that we should talk on the ground and we cannot discourage users from using technologies with dreamy ideas and a technological look.”
He continued: At DigiPay, we use big data for financial inclusion, and I believe that financial inclusion should be next to the speed of access to facilities. If the type of documents and all the requirements are the same as in the traditional section and the same amount of time is needed, no node will be solved by the user.In addition to the fact that one of the ways to reduce the costs of banks in an era when the physical branches of banks are decreasing, is cooperation with fintechs. We are constantly updating our credit algorithms to be able to identify customer behavior and make decisions based on its analysis.
He also related the balance between privacy and the growth of innovation to the user and added: Today’s users decide by themselves how much data to share with platforms and often share their data with platforms to facilitate their daily affairs. He also emphasized the importance of the sandbox approach in macro management.
Listen to the command of the central bank
Nima Amirshekari, an expert in the field of financial technologies, said about Iran’s position in digital banking: “We are not far behind the world, nor are we on the edge of technology like some countries.” But since our banks listen to the order of the central bank for product development, there has been a big gap between them. If in the world banking products are produced from the needs of the market. Wherever banks and fintechs wanted to innovate, they have faced so many legal prohibitions and blocks that they have no incentive to innovate.
He continued: When we talk about mobile first for the optimal experience of users, we also need to prepare the infrastructure, when it is still wet with seals, signatures and fingerprints to do banking work, development in this regard will definitely face problems.
According to Amirshekari, when the same people with limited and traditional views enter into the development of banking technological products, it is obvious that the development will also be traditional and lack sufficient impact.
He also considered the adaptation of China and Russia in Iran’s banking issues as restrictive and incorrect, and emphasized on designing based on market needs and the need to reduce government interference in innovation.
Amirhossein Khaleghi, a political economy researcher, in a pessimistic and political view of governments, considered moving towards Defi as a moral necessity and said that not in Iran, but all over the world, we the people must do our best to decentralize. Khaleghi considered the digital rial in Iran and digital financial tools as a whole to be the cause of most of the government’s dominance in the people’s daily issues and called them in conflict with the individual freedoms of the people in the society.
Sanctions hinder innovation
In his presentation, Hamidreza Saadati, the executive director of DigiPay’s super application, defined the digital financial experience and its facilitating role and talked about the latest update and features of the latest version of DigiPay and said that so far DigiPay has hosted 15 million users and provided $383 million credit cards to users through this platform. Nima Shamsapour, the CEO of the Faranic Innovation Foundation, also spoke about the innovation trends in Neobank and Superapps and listed sanctions as obstacles to innovation in business spaces.
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