Moderated a 45-minute closing panel titled "From Legacy Systems to AI-Native Enterprises" at the 2nd World Fintech Summit. The session opened with a striking paradox — COBOL, invented in 1959, still powers over 40% of global banking infrastructure, even as the industry races toward AI-native transformation. The panel brought together perspectives from across the BFSI spectrum: Nagaraj Narayana (CSB Bank) on treasury tech and data architecture realities; Harsh Gupta (Cashfree Payments) on what digital-native fintechs reveal about incumbent gaps; Manjit Singh Kochar (Punjab National Bank) on the unique constraints of transforming a PSU-scale institution; Aditya Goenka (YES Securities) on the governance and compliance dimensions of moving fast; and Hemnag Vijayan (Word Works AI) on the customer-AI frontier. Across four themes — defining AI-native, data and customer expectations, risks and talent, and the future-ready BFSI org — the panel converged on a key insight: the bottleneck isn't technology, it's data plumbing, organizational metabolism, and bilingual talent that speaks both code and credit risk. The session closed with a Venkatraman-inspired framework on competing simultaneously across Experience, Industrial, and Solutions dimensions — and the argument that in BFSI, transformation is less about ambition and more about discipline.
Photo gallery
Moments from the day
Panel Discussion
Anand Mahalingam
"Rewarding curiosity — gifting a copy of 'Think and Grow Rich' to an audience member who nailed the question from the floor at the 2nd World Fintech Summit panel."
"Honoured to receive a memento from Dr. Ravi Gupta, Founder & CEO of Elets Technomedia, in recognition of moderating the panel on 'Digital Transformation in BFSI — From Legacy to AI-Native Enterprises' at the 2nd World Fintech Summit."
"Proud moment on stage — the panel at the 2nd World Fintech Summit receiving mementos in recognition of a rich conversation on Digital Transformation in BFSI: From Legacy to AI-Native Enterprises."