4th Edition · Event Insights
Scaling responsibly. Lending intelligently. Building the next-gen NBFC.
The Snippet
The 4th ETBFSI NBFC Connect convened the country's NBFC leadership at the Hilton, Chennai for a single, deliberately dense day of practitioner conversation — keynote to closing panel.
The agenda moved from a macro keynote into seven hours of leaders' sessions, partner sessions and boardroom-grade panels covering disruption, responsible scale, fintech partnerships, risk, security and Co-Lending 2.0. This snippet is your working takeaway document.
On the floor
344
total attendees across the day
Six lines we leave you with
If you read nothing else, read these. Each was repeated, in some form, across multiple sessions.
NBFCs are no longer a shadow of banks — they are a parallel rail with their own operating physics.
Talent, not capital or technology, is the binding constraint on NBFC scale.
Co-Lending 2.0 will be defined by data exchange and risk-sharing maturity, not by volume targets.
Trust — engineered through sovereignty, model governance and observability — is the new compliance.
Over-rejection now costs digital lenders 2–3x more than over-approval.
The CIO/CDO seat is co-owning the loan-book P&L, not just the tech budget.
Day Report
29 April 2026 · Hilton, Chennai
Day highlights
Glimpses
Twenty seconds of the room — the conversations, the corridors, the cohort that defined the 4th edition of NBFC Connect.
On stage
Leaders Session — Disruption in the Digital Era
On stage
Panel — The Fintech-NBFC Synergy
Session Insights
Tap any session for the full insights.
Delegate Survey
Conducted on-floor with delegates. 198 responses · response rate 82%.
Q01
Insight
Talent decisively outranked capital — confirming the Leaders Session: the binding constraint is people, not money.
Q02
Insight
AI and decisioning lead by a wide margin — every CEO on the leaders' panel had already committed >5% of opex to this line.
Q03
Insight
Three out of four NBFCs are now active or piloting in co-lending — validating the panel thesis that 2.0 is the new default.
Q04
Insight
The CEO leaders' session and Co-Lending 2.0 dominated — together accounting for 55% of 'most valuable' votes.
Q05
Insight
NPS of +64 — the highest across the four editions of NBFC Connect.
Sessions Worth Re-watching
Janak Raj, Former ED, RBI
NBFC CEO Roundtable
Moderated by Raman Aggarwal, FIDC
A note from our partner
Oracle has worked alongside India's leading NBFCs for nearly two decades — across core lending, cloud infrastructure and AI-led decisioning. The framework below distils the operating patterns we have seen separate the NBFCs that scale digital lending profitably from those that don't.
"Digital lending isn't a channel — it is the operating model. The NBFCs that internalise this in their core, their data and their org chart will define the next cycle."
— Sanjeev Chauhan, VP - Technology Solutions Engineering, Oracle India
The NBFC Digital Lending Playbook
PDF · Free for delegates
From the timeline
What the room said, on the record.
A selection of posts from delegates, speakers and partners using #ETNBFCConnect.
Amol Dethe
Editor, ETBFSI
1d · 🌐
13 sessions. 250+ NBFC leaders. One working agenda for the next cycle. The 4th edition of #ETNBFCConnect was the densest yet — practitioner conversation from keynote to closing panel. Grateful to every speaker, partner and delegate who showed up.
ETBFSI
The Economic Times BFSI
2d · 🌐
LIVE: "Digital lending isn't a channel — it is the operating model." — Sanjeev Chauhan, Oracle India, at #ETNBFCConnect 2026, Hilton Chennai.
Pankaj Gupta
MD & CEO, Godrej Finance
1d · 🌐
We are not competing with banks anymore — we are competing with the customer's expectations of every other app on their phone. Honoured to share the stage with peers at the Leaders Session today. #ETNBFCConnect
Shrishti Sharma
Correspondent, ETBFSI
2d · 🌐
Co-Lending 2.0 panel was unmissable. Volumes projected to double by FY28. The unblocker? Standardised data exchange between partners. #ETNBFCConnect
Oracle India
Technology Solutions
1d · 🌐
Proud to be the In-Association partner for the 4th ETBFSI NBFC Connect. Cloud-native cores reduce per-loan operating cost by 28–34% within 18 months — and the room was ready for that conversation. #ETNBFCConnect
FIDC India
Finance Industry Development Council
2d · 🌐
Raman Aggarwal moderating Co-Lending 2.0 with six of the sharpest minds in NBFC lending. The next leg of growth is in segments banks have under-served — not in re-pricing existing books. #ETNBFCConnect