PM Opens 7th Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai

The world's largest fintech gathering has opened in India. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the 7th Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2026 in Mumbai on 8 September 2026. The festival runs to 11 September 2026. It was his third appearance in a row at this event, which he described as a hat-trick. The fest began in 2020 and has grown into one of the leading fintech gatherings anywhere.

The theme and its three pillars

The theme of the 2026 edition is Potential to Impact: Agentic AI, Tokenisation, Quantum: Trusted, Connected, Global Systems for Inclusive Finance. Three technologies hold it up.

Who organises the fest

The principal organisers are the Payments Council of India, the National Payments Corporation of India and the Fintech Convergence Council. Support comes from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Department of Financial Services, the NEST Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, NITI Aayog, the Reserve Bank of India, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the International Financial Services Centres Authority and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority.

What the Prime Minister said

He called UPI a major champion of the country's fintech story and placed Aadhaar, internet expansion and UPI at the base of the digital public infrastructure. He pointed to growth of 7.8 per cent in the April to June quarter and to a Japanese credit rating agency raising the sovereign rating to the A- category after three decades. He asked the sector to take up four collective tasks: top-notch cybersecurity, ethical data protection standards, a strong innovation ecosystem between regulator and industry, and a Fintech Consumer Protection Index.