why fintech in india is becoming infra, not just apps
from upi to account aggregators, the most important fintech layer in india is the one you don’t see.
the visible layer is a distraction
most people think indian fintech is just about shiny apps. wallets, neobanks, spend trackers. but it’s something different.
the flashy layers are still there: the wave of neo-banks, credit-on-UPI, savings gamification, and other pretty layers. but now, india’s fintech story is moving down the stack.
the real power in indian fintech isn’t what you build for users. it’s what you build for builders. look around. the most powerful products today are being built for developers, not end users. like cursor. like upi’s api layer. like account aggregators. like ondc’s financial rails. this is infra, stitched together to help others build.
we’re in the middle of a shift. fintech is morphing from being app-first to becoming infra-first.
and if you're only watching the front-end, you're missing the plot.
upi was the teaser. account aggregators are the trailer.
upi was never just a payment method. it was a public rails revolution disguised as a qr code. by abstracting the complexity of banking and enabling instant money movement, upi redefined what infra could do for an entire ecosystem.
banks didn’t build the interface. apps did. and now even the apps don’t own the whole funnel, they just plug in.
and then came account aggregators (aas). think of them as a permissioned way to share your financial data across platforms, securely, and instantly.
in a world where lending was broken because of poor data and fragmented systems, aas are changing the game. a bank can now fetch your gst filings or mutual fund sips with your consent and underwrite a loan in minutes.
and it's not just lending. personal finance, insurance, credit scoring, they all get rewritten when access to data is this smooth.
but this doesn’t look sexy on a billboard.
infra never does.
infra is the new moat
you can clone a fintech app in a weekend.
you can’t clone deep integration with public rails.
infra is sticky. it compounds. once you're in the pipe, as a psp, an aa-enabled institution, or an fiu, you're part of the bloodstream. you're not fighting for user attention anymore. you're enabling the apps that do.
this is why the smartest fintech builders in india today aren’t just chasing users. they’re building pipes, protocols, and permissions.
sahamati, for example, isn’t a consumer product. but it’s quietly powering the rails that could make financial inclusion real, not just a campaign slogan.
infra doesn’t mean boring. it means foundational.
infra isn’t killing b2c. it’s powering it.
this shift from apps to infra doesn’t mean b2c is dead. it just means the leverage is different now.
take ondc. on the surface, it's a commerce play. but underneath, it’s a protocol, doing to digital commerce what upi did to payments.
or look at setu (acquired by pine labs). or decentro. or m2p. these are infra fintechs that most end-users haven’t even heard of. and that’s the point. they don’t need to know.
infra works when it’s invisible.
it doesn’t chase vanity metrics. it doesn’t advertise on the front page of a fintech blog. but it powers what others can build on top.
this is why infra startups often look quieter from the outside, but far more defensible from the inside.
india’s fintech model isn’t western. it’s uniquely indian.
india is one of the only countries where the state builds infra, and the private sector builds on top of it.
this isn’t an american-style fintech landscape.
in the us, stripe and plaid are infra. in india, we get npci, uidai, rbi-backed account aggregators, and a whole market of private players who figure out how to use these building blocks.
we didn’t copy silicon valley. we leapfrogged it.
we didn’t need banks to build apis from scratch. the rails came first. the incentives came after. we got the stack, then we figured out distribution.
and yes, there are gaps. regulation is evolving. developer experience isn’t always smooth. but the base is being laid. and it’s more inclusive than most western countries could even attempt.
what happens next?
the next wave of breakout fintechs will look more like infra and less like wallets.
infra will be monetized through access, not eyeballs.
moats will come from integrations, not ui.
the rbi’s regulatory clarity will make or break the pace of this infra adoption.
founders who understand the stack, not just the app, will build the most durable businesses.
fintech in india isn’t dying.
it’s just getting less visible, and more powerful.
infra is no longer the back-office.
it’s the frontlines of innovation.