Decentralized Finance - DeFi - challenges the role of traditional financial
intermediaries in providing financial services of loans, brokerage and banking. An
evolutionary movement accessible to anyone with mobile and internet has grown from
$4Bn to $104Bn in the last five years.
DeFi is the intersection of FinTech (Financial Technology) and RegTech (Regulatory
Technology). DeFi has the potential to reduce transaction costs and bring financial
inclusivity to a larger level and create new opportunities in modernizing finance.
As the regulations for cryptocurrencies are a bit murky in India, this paper aims to put
forth a case of Decentralized finance through a standardized systematic literature
review based on different tiers of micro, meso and macro levels. Through different
sections of the paper, we introduce Decentralized Finance, compare it to the prevalent
Centralized Financing and look forward to the challenges and opportunities in bringing
DeFi to mainstream services in India.
Keywords: Blockchain, Decentralized Finance, DeFi, Literature Review, Research Directions.
