How startups are using blockchain for the fintech revolution in India

India’s fintech revolution has already solved one big problem: moving money at population scale. According to an April 2026 PIB release by the Union Ministry of Finance, UPI crossed ₹314 lakh crore in transaction value in FY 2025-26 and had onboarded more than 700 banks. That scale has changed the reality for the fintech industry.

Once payments become instant and widely available, the pressure shifts to what surrounds the payment: verification, reconciliation, credit assessment, settlement, and record-keeping.

This is where blockchain is finding a more serious role in Indian fintech. The opportunity is not to replace UPI or banking rails, but to make the financial workflows around them more reliable. For lenders, that could mean a clearer trail of borrower consent, collateral, and repayment. For businesses, it could mean invoice records that are easier to verify before financing. For banks and institutions, it could mean faster settlement and cleaner ownership records when financial assets change hands. In such a large digital payments market, trust is becoming the next frontier for the entire financial ecosystem.

India’s account aggregator framework shows why this matters. According to the Department of Financial Services, as of March 31, 2026, more than 2.88 billion financial accounts were enabled for data sharing, 284.6 million accounts had been linked by users, and the account aggregator ecosystem had 179 live financial information providers and 989 live financial information users.

This is becoming a national data layer. It allows financial information to move with user consent. But once that data enters a lending, insurance, investment or business-finance workflow, the next challenge is maintaining a record that all authorised parties can trust.

Blockchain’s fintech role

Startups can build on this layer by solving what happens after consented data is accessed. A lender may receive bank data through an account aggregator. But the lending decision does not end with access to data. It needs records that can survive multiple hand-offs between the borrower, lender, platform, verifier, and regulator. The loan record, collateral position, invoice trail, or repayment history must be trusted by every authorised party.

Blockchain can help create a shared record for such workflows. The value is not dramatic decentralisation. The value is a cleaner and verifiable, blockchain-based audit trail.

Absorption into the formal system

The most credible blockchain story in Indian fintech is therefore likely to be regulated and practical. One area where this shift is already visible is tokenised money. The RBI’s Digital Rupee FAQ, updated on April 29, 2026, says the e-rupee is being pilot-tested in both retail and wholesale segments. This shows that tokenised finance is not only a private-sector idea. It is being tested inside the formal financial system.

Some of this is already moving from theory to product. In January 2025, CRED became the first fintech platform to integrate access to India’s e-rupee project. For users, the experience may simply look like another wallet inside an app. For fintech companies, it is a way to test public digital money in familiar consumer interfaces. That distinction is important. A customer may only see an e-rupee wallet inside a familiar fintech app. But for the fintech company, each transaction can show how tokenised money works in practice: how quickly it settles, how easily it can be used for merchant payments, whether rewards can be credited instantly, and whether the wallet experience feels as simple as UPI.

The startup layer is also emerging through acquisitions. In March 2025, Mintoak, a merchant payments startup backed by PayPal and HDFC Bank, acquired Digiledge for about $3.5 million. This was described as India’s first e-rupee-related acquisition, with Digiledge specialising in CBDC and bill-payment services.

This shows startups are buying capability, integrating wallets, and preparing for bank-partnered digital currency use cases. In other words, blockchain-linked fintech is not only being built through new apps. It is also being assembled through partnerships, acquisitions, and bank-facing infrastructure.

Tokenisation

Tokenisation may create the next set of opportunities. In simple terms, tokenisation allows a financial instrument or asset claim to be represented as a digital unit that can be recorded, transferred, and settled within a controlled system. In October 2025, RBI announced that it was launching a pilot to tokenise certificates of deposit through the wholesale CBDC segment. The winning product may not be a flashy consumer wallet. It may be software that helps banks settle faster and reconcile records more easily.

The same logic can extend to invoices, deposits, bonds, and other real-world financial assets. A tokenised asset can carry a clearer record of ownership and make transfer and settlement easier within a permitted framework. This does not mean every asset should be opened to retail speculation. It means startups can create safer rails for institutions, lenders, and businesses. With 989 live financial information users already present in the account aggregator ecosystem, demand for cleaner financial workflows is visible.

The user base is also ready for digital value. Chainalysis ranked India number 1 in its 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index. This should not be read as an argument for turning fintech into trading. Its relevance is narrower but useful. A user who has already bought a digital asset, used a wallet, completed online KYC, or moved value through an app is less likely to find tokenised money or blockchain-backed financial products unfamiliar.

For startups, that lowers the education burden. It becomes easier to introduce products where the blockchain layer stays in the background. It could be tokenised deposits, verified invoices, programmable rewards, or faster settlement for merchants and institutions.

This is why the blockchain revolution in Indian fintech may be quieter than its early champions expected. It may not arrive through a grand slogan about disruption. It may come through a small lender or NBFC that verifies collateral faster. It can happen when an MSME finances receivables with fewer disputes, or when a bank settles tokenised instruments with better records.

UPI made money move instantly and swiftly. Blockchain’s next role may be quieter but no less important. It will be helping startups build the verification, ownership, and settlement layers that make digital finance easier to trust.

The author is CEO of cryptocurrency platform Giottus.