Conversations with Sid Shetty - an advisor to the Indian Ministry of Finance

Join Economic Development Club for a lunch and learn event with Sid Shetty, the CTO of Sahamati, one of the architects of IndiaStack, and a trusted advisor to the Indian Ministry of Finance.

About the Event:
The Finternet is a new vision for the financial system published by the Bank for International Settlements on April 19th (presented by Nandan Nilekani, Agustin Carstens of the BIS, Central Bank Governors from Brazil, Korea, and Germany (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3JoGMcFyjk). This paper (https://www.bis.org/publ/work1178.pdf) lays out a vision for multiple financial ecosystems interconnected with each other, much like the internet, designed to empower individuals and businesses by placing them at the centre of their financial lives. It advocates for a user-centric approach that lowers barriers between financial services and systems, thus promoting access for all. The envisioned system leverages innovative technologies such as tokenisation and unified ledgers, underpinned by a robust economic and regulatory framework, to dramatically expand the range and quality of financial services. This integration aims to foster greater participation, offer more personalised services and improve speed and reliability, all while reducing costs for end users. Most of the technology needed to achieve this vision exists and is fast improving, driven by efforts around the world. This paper provides a blueprint for how key technical characteristics like interoperability, verifiability, programmability, immutability, finality, evolvability, modularity, scalability, security and privacy can be incorporated, and how varied governance norms can be embedded. More resources below:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/finternet-redesign-global-financial-architecture-blockchain-innovation-by-agustin-carstens-and-nandan-nilekani-2024-05
Deeper dive on it from a technology perspective - Finternet: technology vision and architecture - bit.ly/finternet-tech (co-authored by Nandan Nilekani, Pramod Varma, and Sid Shetty).
Discussion with Agustin Carstens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-ukiKchQsI
Finternet Lab Website: https://finternetlab.io/


About the Speaker
Siddharth Shetty designs Digital Public Infrastructure that socio-economically empowers individuals and small businesses. His leadership spans the areas of technology, public policy, foreign policy, institution building, and engaging civil society, private and public sector market players, governments, and regulators in building digital ecosystems. He’s been leading the strategy & design for the Data Empowerment & Protection Architecture, a techno-legal framework that gives individual & small businesses control of their data. It’s currently being rolled out in India and is the largest implementation of Open Finance globally. Siddharth Shetty is the CTO of Sahamati and has been a participant in numerous government and regulatory committees in India. He’s a former Advisor to India’s Ministry of Finance on Digital Public Infrastructure and has been advising advanced and emerging economies on their design & deployment of Digital Public Infrastructure. He’s also a Technology Advisor for Unified Interfaces at the Foundation for Interoperable Digital Economy. He’s also been involved in designing the India Stack, Personal Health Records for India’s Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, a digital health infrastructure backbone, DigiYatra for seamless aviation travel, Digital Sky to integrate drones into civilian airspace, and numerous other digital infrastructure. Find him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/imsiddshetty

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