One of my favorite lines attributed to Henry Ford goes, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” I return to this thought often because true transformation rarely comes from improving what already exists. It comes from questioning, understanding the world and the pain points deeply. As we step towards 2026, this feels particularly relevant for financial services in India. We have spent the last decade improving speed, efficiency, and access. The next decade will be about rethinking what financial decision-making itself looks like.
The Consumer Is Ready, The Context Is Changing
India’s macroeconomic backdrop is telling a very clear story. GDP growth touching 8.2 percent in Q2 FY 26 signals not only resilience but confidence, at a time when many global economies are confronting inflation, tightening liquidity, and slower consumption. Domestic demand is still the key driver, and policy stability continues to anchor investor sentiment. None of this is incidental. GST rationalization, targeted reforms, and an accommodative monetary stance have helped shape an environment where financial participation feels more natural than ever before.
For FinTech and digital platforms, this creates a different kind of opportunity. The consumer is not just online anymore. The consumer is curious, aspirational, and increasingly willing to take financial decisions, provided the path feels intuitive and trusted.
India’s Leapfrog Ability Is Becoming Structural, Not Accidental
India has a unique ability to leapfrog. We skipped long phases of credit card penetration and went directly to mobile payments. We bypassed physical branch expansion and built digital infrastructure at a population scale. It is this leapfrogging mindset that positions India differently as the world enters an AI-driven financial decade.
Where many markets are looking at how to plug AI into existing workflows, India is building financial use-cases from day one with intelligence at the core. We are moving from digitization towards intelligence-led decision-making, which is a very different stage of transformation.
The Intelligence Layer Is Becoming the Differentiator
The numbers being stacked up are staggering. Globally, investment in AI by the FinTech sector is forecast to rise from $12 billion in 2023 to $62 billion by 2032. The generative AI market in FinTech alone grew from $1.61 billion in 2024 to $2.17 billion in 2025. India isn’t a passive participant in this shift. Indian FinTech companies are building agentic AI systems, which are autonomous financial agents that can make intelligent decisions, personalize investments, and democratize financial expertise that was once reserved for the wealthy.
This is important because for decades, personalized advice was a privilege available only to a limited segment. Today, intelligence is democratizing decision-making itself. A first-time investor in Agra can receive portfolio guidance that a high net-worth investor in London receives, through the same interface. That has profound implications for financial confidence, especially among younger investors and new earners.
Innovation Brings New Responsibilities
However, technology’s evolution also reshapes security. Fraud is no longer manual; it is algorithmic. The threat surface today uses the same machine learning techniques that protect our systems. It’s a constant cat and mouse game, which means that security cannot remain static. It must continuously learn, anticipate patterns, and evolve faster than risks do.
In 2025, real-time anomaly detection has moved from being an advanced idea to a fundamental requirement. Financial institutions need to think about security not as compliance but as continuous intelligence. The organizations that succeed in the coming years will be those that treat security as a living capability.
Where Technology Meets Financial Confidence
The most meaningful shift happening now is not just digital adoption, but deeper financial confidence. India already processes more than 20 billion UPI transactions a month, so access is no longer a barrier. Seventy percent of financial services leaders anticipate using AI to deliver tailored investment advice previously available only to high-net-worth individuals. The question is how many will invest confidently, save consistently, or plan thoughtfully. That shift depends on financial education embedded into products, advisory that feels intuitive, and platforms that reduce complexity rather than introduce more of it.
Technology should not just be the infrastructure behind investing. It should be intelligence that helps people grow, protect and plan their financial futures. If technology can simplify financial literacy and make informed decision-making accessible, India will not just have more investors, it will have more confident investors.
Looking Toward 2026
As we look ahead, I see three themes defining the next phase of Indian FinTech. First, intelligent products that learn continuously rather than operate on static rules. Second, security systems that adapt in real time, because the future of fraud will be AI versus AI. And third, a new paradigm where AI doesn’t just automate tasks but democratizes intelligence itself—pushing investors, teams, and entire institutions to get smarter over time.
This is the shift we’re already seeing with generative and agentic models. For instance, Google using Gemini to write Gemini code isn’t a novelty; it’s a preview of what’s coming. Systems that write systems. Platforms that evolve their own capabilities. That is where finance begins to transform from rule-based workflows to intelligence-driven ecosystems. And that talent foundation may define just how fast Indian FinTech moves in 2026 and beyond.
And there’s another transformation accelerating this journey. India is quietly becoming the global innovation hub through its Global Capability Centres. What began as cost-efficient back offices has now evolved into advanced technology and AI engineering hubs for the world. In 2025, India strengthened its position as the undisputed GCC capital, with BFSI and FinTech overtaking pure IT to command 44% of GCC leasing activity, which is a significant inflection point.
This matters for 2026 because capability is shifting from headquarters to talent hubs. And those hubs increasingly live in India. The more agentic AI is built here, the more India becomes the intelligence layer of global finance. Over the coming year, we could see India not just participating in the AI wave—but defining standards for it. I look forward to India being an Innovation Center vs. Just a Development Center for most global companies.
Building What Does Not Exist Yet
If there is one thing technology keeps teaching us, it is that the future rarely looks like a better version of the past. We do not need faster horses; we need to rethink transportation entirely. The same holds true for finance. Let me leave you with another quote a friend mentioned to me — “You can’t create a light bulb by continuously improving a candle”.
The next phase for India is not about improving what exists. It is about imagining what does not exist yet and having the conviction to build it. The future of finance will belong to those who can combine data, intelligence, and trust to create possibilities we cannot see clearly today. That is the mindset I believe will shape 2026.