V2I10P63

AI-Powered Financial Empowerment for Indian Startups and SMEs: A Full-Stack Platform Integrating Bookkeeping, Forecasting, Credit Scoring, and Blockchain

Harshith D S^1*, Ruchitha B²

Abstract

India’s rapidly growing startup ecosystem and expansive MSME sector face serious financial management hurdles — from manual bookkeeping and low financial literacy to the high cost of compliance and limited investor readiness. While Chartered Accountants (CAs) and legacy tools remain standard, they are neither scalable nor affordable for early-stage firms. This paper proposes a full-stack, AI-powered Financial Empowerment Platform designed to automate accounting, generate financial forecasts, assess credit and risk, flag anomalies, and recommend government schemes and funding opportunities. It integrates explainable AI (e.g., SHAP for credit scoring transparency), blockchain-backed audit trails for data immutability, and modular AI pipelines for forecasting and risk classification. Using real-world funding data from 2023 and model simulations (e.g., LSTM forecasting, XGBoost risk scoring), the platform demonstrates improved prediction accuracy, transparency, and compliance support. Literature reviewed shows that while FinTech adoption is accelerating, MSMEs still lack the tools and expertise to leverage its full benefits. Our system addresses this by combining automation, interpretability, and inclusion — targeting not only startups but also private and public companies seeking better financial health and trustworthiness. We conclude by proposing field pilots, integration with India Stack APIs, and ethical safeguards (e.g., permissioned ledgers, bias audits) to scale this approach. This research contributes a novel, practical architecture toward democratizing financial intelligence in emerging economies.

Keywords:

AI finance; MSME digitization; explainable AI; blockchain audit; financial inclusion