St. Xavier’s Kolkata Hosts Global Fintech & Crypto Conference

St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata, recently hosted a significant international conference focusing on decentralized finance, cryptocurrency, and fintech. The event, held in collaboration with Kolkata Bidhannagar Society for Academic Advancement, aimed to chart a course “Enroute to Viksit Bharat @2047.”

Key Discussions & Participation

The hybrid conference brought together academicians, researchers, and industry experts to deliberate on critical financial technology trends. Key themes included:

• Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Cryptocurrency
• Blockchain technology and its applications
• Fintech solutions for MSMEs and rural credit
• Digital financial inclusion and transformation in banking
• Sustainable finance, ESG, and green fintech
• Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in financial markets

Conference Highlights

Vice-Chancellor Rev Dr. John Felix Raj, S.J., emphasized the ethical role of technology and finance. He stated that “technology must serve people, finance must support inclusion, innovation must promote development, and growth must be rooted in ethics and human dignity.”

Pre-conference sessions on June 12, 2026, featured an opening talk by Prof. Charalampos Stasinakis from the University of Glasgow and a panel discussion.

• 168 research papers were submitted from across India.
• 85 papers were selected after a rigorous screening process.
• 70 papers were finally registered and presented across 70 technical sessions.

These sessions were conducted both online and offline, with 35 presentations in each mode, and were evaluated by 20 distinguished chairpersons.