RBI Governor Meets Bankers, Wants Them To Leverage AI, Enhance Customer Service
The meetings were chaired by the Governor, deputy governors and executive directors in charge of supervision, regulation, enforcement, consumer education and protection, and financial inclusion.
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Tuesday asked banks to leverage advanced technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), to expand their reach, improve operational efficiency, and enhance customer experience while ensuring robust cybersecurity.
This was the half-yearly meeting with managing directors and chief executive officers of public and select private sector banks and came a day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reviewed the progress of the RBI’s forex mobilisation measures with public sector bank heads.
In a statement the central bank said that the Governor urged the lenders to continue to meet the needs of all segments and sections of the economy with renewed vigour and prudence. He also stressed the need to cultivate a passion for excellence in customer service by placing customers at the heart of banking operations.
“He suggested banks to leverage advanced technologies, including AI, to expand their reach, improve operational efficiency, reduce costs and enhance customer experience, while ensuring robust cybersecurity, strong internal controls and safeguards against fraud and data misuse,” said the RBI in a statement.
The meetings were chaired by the Governor, deputy governors and executive directors in charge of supervision, regulation, enforcement, consumer education and protection, and financial inclusion.
Other matters discussed included CKYCR, early detection of fake currency notes, adoption and/or popularisation of MuleHunter, CBDC, Unified lending interface, account aggregator, FX Retail, Retail-Direct, etc. The participants shared their feedback on these aspects as well as other matters broadly affecting the financial sector, said the central bank.
Meanwhile, in a separate release the RBI overhauled the governance framework for commercial banks effective October 1, 2026.
Under the new framework, banks will be allowed to delegate a wider range of operational matters to board committees or management, while boards themselves will continue to retain oversight of critical areas such as risk management, related-party exposures and the institution's overall governance framework.
In another development, the central bank issued draft amendments regarding the framework governing acquisitions of major shareholding in banks by mutual funds, insurance companies and pension funds. It is likely to introduce a “one-time approval” mechanism that would allow these institutional investors to increase their stakes without seeking repeated regulatory approvals.