Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to attend the seventh Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai, emphasising India’s focus on advancing financial technology through AI, tokenisation, and quantum systems amid growing international collaboration and state-led infrastructure growth.
Narendra Modi is due in Mumbai at about 5.45pm on Tuesday, 8 September, to open the seventh Global Fintech Fest, a four-day gathering that aims to put artificial intelligence, tokenisation and quantum computing at the heart of financial policy and product design. Mid-Day reported the timing of the prime minister’s visit, while a Government of India listing describes the event as a major international forum for policymakers, regulators, central bankers and industry leaders.
The festival runs until 11 September at the Jio World Centre and Trident BKC and is being organised by the Payments Council of India, the National Payments Corporation of India and the Fintech Convergence Council, according to The Economic Times and Business Standard Hindi. The speaker roster stretches well beyond Modi. Business Standard Hindi reported that finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, roads minister Nitin Gadkari, RBI governor Sanjay Malhotra, Sebi chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey, PFRDA chairperson Shivsubramanian Raman, commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal, financial services secretary Sanjay Lohiya and Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani were expected to address the summit. The Economic Times added that overseas participants would include central bank governors and senior representatives from the Bank for International Settlements, the Bank of England, Banque de France and JPMorgan. There is, however, some variation in how organisers and officials are describing the event’s international reach: Business Standard Hindi said delegates from more than 70 countries were expected, while the government listing said participation would come from over 100 countries.
Organisers are pitching the event as more than a showcase. The Economic Times said they were expecting more than 100,000 attendees, 5,000 participating companies, 700 speakers, 400 investors and 350 exhibitors, alongside startup showcases, workshops, hackathons and industry reports. Business Standard Hindi said the agenda would also include keynote speeches, regulatory conversations, industry panels and policy and business roundtables. Modi’s appearance will mark his third consecutive year at the conference, that publication reported.
This year’s theme is “Potential to Impact: Agentic AI | Tokenisation | Quantum: Trusted, Connected, Global Systems for Inclusive Finance.” In practical terms, the agenda points to three bets on where finance may be heading next: software agents that can carry out complex tasks with limited human intervention, digital systems that turn assets into programmable tokens, and quantum tools that organisers say could alter security and optimisation. Kris Gopalakrishnan, chair of GFF 2026, told The Economic Times that the sessions would examine how those technologies were “transforming the sector”, while Sohini Rajola of NPCI said their convergence could create “a new financial operating stack that is intelligent, programmable and secure”.
The conference is also a platform for Maharashtra’s own sales pitch. Devendra Fadnavis has spent months arguing that Mumbai should be seen not only as India’s established financial centre but as its fintech base as well. In an interview published by Moneycontrol, the chief minister said, “We are the fintech capital. We are the startup capital.” He supported that claim with infrastructure numbers, saying Maharashtra held more than 1 gigawatt of India’s roughly 1.5 gigawatts of operational data-centre capacity. In the same interview, he said the state had plug-and-play parks and had closed some land allotment deals in 24 to 36 hours.
Fadnavis has pressed the same case elsewhere, albeit with slightly different figures. Speaking at a Bank of America event in 2025, he said Maharashtra housed nearly 60 per cent of India’s total data-centre capacity and that “Mumbai has become the fintech capital of the country”, according to The Indian Express. The paper said he also claimed the state had secured more than Rs 16 lakh crore in investment commitments at the World Economic Forum in Davos, with more than half aimed at manufacturing. Beyond fintech, he outlined a wider technology-and-infrastructure strategy that included a new advanced cybersecurity centre and plans for a “Fourth Mumbai” around the Vadhavan Port region.
That broader backdrop helps explain why the festival matters politically as well as commercially. The Economic Times reported that the event had support from a wide group of Indian institutions and regulators, including the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Department of Financial Services, NITI Aayog, RBI, Sebi, IFSCA and PFRDA. The government listing says the conference has grown from virtual beginnings during a global crisis into one of the world’s most influential annual fintech gatherings. Mid-Day, meanwhile, noted that Modi’s Mumbai appearance forms the evening leg of a wider 8 September itinerary that begins in Gujarat earlier in the day. By the time the summit ends on 11 September, organisers want it to have done more than celebrate India’s digital payments success: they want it to show that the next layer of financial infrastructure, from automated decision-making to quantum-grade security, is moving from theory towards deployment.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to inform and educate, not to recommend or endorse any financial product, investment or strategy. Please consider your own financial circumstances and seek professional advice where appropriate before making financial decisions.
