AP govt to offer $1 million prize for best fintech startup

The Andhra Pradesh government is planning to offer $1 million as the first prize in a competition for the best business plan submitted by a start-up in the financial technology (fintech) domain, said a senior official here.

"The first prize is $1 million and there will be other prizes as well. However Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu still has to approve the plan," J.A. Chowdary, Advisor IT and Special Chief Secretary to Naidu told IANS late Monday.

He was here to participate in a panel discussion on 'Trends in Fintech and Blockchain Technologies' organised jointly by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Andhra Pradesh government.

According to Chowdary, the results of the fintech start up business plan competition will be announced at the Global Fintech Summit to be held in Vishakapatanam in October.

Speaking about the Fintech Valley Vizag, he said the 40 acre information technology (IT) park now has one tower from which couple of companies are operating.

He said there were plans to set up technology institutes starting with Blockchain Institute of Technology.

Blockchain technology is simply a ledger which is distributed across multiple parties guaranteeing 100 per cent consistent data with all of them.