GST was expected to be challenging in the short-term, says Sanjay Phadke, EVP-platform & FI business head – Vayana Network
GST has been a mega step in formalising the Indian economy. The transformation from a cash-based disconnected one to a digital, data-rich ecosystem has accelerated with the unveiling of GST. Overall, the financial services sector, including the fintech sector, has been a major beneficiary due to the increasing availability of live data, leading to better health indicators for digital lending.
Being a huge change, GST was expected to be challenging in the short-term. However, the high number of registrations along with streamlining of the monthly returns process has been a big benefit. The rollout of a number of features initially and then rollback has been somewhat confusing, but in retrospect it may have been too difficult to avoid, as it was not easy to predict how this would play out.
The benefits of GST-driven changes in compliance and data availability are there for all players in the ecosystem, whether traditional or new. It is however expected that fintechs, being more nimble, would be able to leverage this better given their tech-savvy.
