‘World’s largest fintech hub’ expands from Singapore to India

The coastal city of Vizag in southern India is an emerging fintech hub. Photo credit: Ravikiran Rao (Flickr)

Four months ago, the world’s largest fintech hub Lattice80, spanning 30,000 square feet, opened in Singapore’s Central Business District. It aimed to help fintech startups take advantage of Singapore’s legal infrastructure and access to global investors as a fintech and trading hub.

Yesterday, Marvelstone – the private investment group behind the project – signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of Andhra Pradesh, a southern state in India, to open another Lattice80 in the coastal city of Vizag. This will be the first Lattice80 center to open outside Singapore.

See: Here’s how hot fintech got in Asia in 2016

The state of Andhra Pradesh was split into two in 2014 following a long agitation. Ten of its 23 districts, which comprised the former princely state of the Nizam of Hyderabad, were carved out to form a new state of Telangana.

The chief minister of the new, truncated state of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu, who was earlier credited with creating ‘Cyberabad’, is now on a mission to build Vizag into a tech hub. One of the initiatives is the creation of Vizag’s Fintech Valley, where startups, investors, and financial institutions can collaborate with the government’s regulatory support.

The new state of Andhra Pradesh is also a startup.

The Andhra Pradesh chief minister’s special advisor for tech, J A Chowdary, gave a glimpse of the road ahead at a meeting with fintech players on the sidelines of the Fintegrate conclave in India’s financial capital of Mumbai last week. “The new state of Andhra Pradesh is also a startup,” he told them.

One of the initiatives to attract innovators is a million-dollar prize for any fintech startup in the world that wins an annual challenge. The road shows for this year’s competition will go to three Indian cities as well as global fintech cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, and London. The demo day for the finalists, and the award for the winner, will be in Vizag in October.

The state government has also allocated US$75 million for a fintech fund, and is looking for corporate and institutional partners to expand it as well as help with its deployment. The plan is to have a fintech accelerator in Vizag, which will serve as a gateway for startups to become eligible for the fund.

In an informal chat with Tech in Asia at the Mumbai event, Chowdary made no secret of his hope that recent protectionist moves and visa curbs in the West would prompt Indian techies to return home – provided India can create a conducive environment for them to work, innovate, and do business.

See: India’s pain and gain from US curbs on H-1B visas

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Lattice80 and Andhra Pradesh government officials after signing an agreement to open a new center in Vizag. Photo credit: Marvelstone.