IIT Madras Incubation Cell and RBI Innovation Hub Collaborates For Financial Innovation and Inclusion

India's leading deep-tech startup hub spearheaded by IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC) and RBI Innovation Hub (RBIH), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reserve Bank of India, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work together in developing the ecosystem necessary to support and scale fintech startups in India.

Through this strategic collaboration, the two organizations will jointly provide incubation support and nurture early-stage startups with innovative and disruptive solutions and accelerate their scale-up journey.

Select startups incubated at IITM Incubation Cell will be considered from time to time by RBIH for co-incubation and thereby receive strategic & operational guidance, training & mentoring sessions by RBIH leadership and domain experts, market access and connect to a larger ecosystem of startups, vendors, investors, and other key resources. 

In addition, IITM Incubation Cell and RBIH may collaborate on projects including policy whitepapers, research papers under this partnership. 

Sharing his views on the incubation partnership, Rajesh Bansal, CEO of RBI Innovation Hub (RBIH) said, “RBIH aims to foster and evangelize innovation across the financial ecosystem. The startup ecosystem in India makes a significant contribution to economic prosperity of the nation. Through such incubation partnership we intend to build a robust environment conducive to growth of fintech start-ups in the nation” 

Through careful incubation, the aim is to empower startups to scale with agility and deploy technological innovations that transform India’s Fintech landscape.

Speaking on the outcome of this collaboration, Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, President, IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC) and IIT Madras Research Park (IITMRP), said, “India is a country where we continue to see large economic disparity. To solve this challenge, we need to work towards financial inclusion in ensuring inclusive economic development for all. This collaboration with RBIH is a positive step forward in this direction. With advances in financial technology and digital transactions, we look forward to working along with more startups to make financial inclusion simpler to achieve."

The collaboration also ties into one of IITM Incubation Cells’ ambitious goals, driven by IIT Madras Research Park, to propagate the vision of financial inclusion in achieving sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth for India.