Mastercard eyes Bharat and fintech startups, Gaurav Aggarwal on AI’s next frontier

Описание: In this exclusive Economic Times interview on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, Gautam Aggarwal, Division President for India & South Asia and Country Corporate Officer at Mastercard, speaks with Dhruv Mohan about the surge in India’s digital payments, starting from 3-4% in the pre-demonetisation era to reaching around 100% tokenised card-not-present transactions. Aggarwal credits the RBI’s mandates and UPI-scale innovation, which is aided by the Government of India’s JAM Trinity, comprising Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, and Mobile, for driving financial inclusion. With over 40 years of operations in India, Aggarwal details Mastercard’s strategy shift as evolving from being focused on the affluent segments of the population to adopting a mass-market “Bharat” strategy to deepen its market roots. Mastercard, in Aggarwal’s words, “one of the first global fintechs,” is now looking to make its products accessible beyond affluent segments to tap over 700 million digitally-active accounts.
He spotlights breakthroughs such as Passkeys, which make it possible to ditch cumbersome OTPs via RBI's alternate framework, now Mastercard’s global 2030 goal, and the company’s first authenticated agentic commerce demo, with Zepto, Bharti Airtel, and Swiggy, enabling seamless AI-chat transactions without manual logins or credentials. Aggarwal charts AI's fintech arc, from slashing fraud to boosting authorisations and automating workflows, while positioning Mastercard as an innovator, investor, and partner, with an interest in India’s burgeoning fintech startup space.
Watch this video for more such insights into the evolving paradigms of AI and fintech.

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