The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra, while acknowledging the important role played by banks in building resilience of the domestic financial system, flagged the rise in digital frauds and advised banks to establish robust and proactive systems to thwart such attempts.
The RBI governor held meetings with the MD & CEOs of public sector banks and select private sector banks on January 27, 2025 in Mumbai. These interactions are part of the Reserve Bank’s continuous engagement with the senior management of its supervised entities. The meetings were also attended by Deputy Governors M Rajeshwar Rao, T Rabi Sankar and Swaminathan J, along with executive directors-in-charge of regulation and supervision. The previous such meeting was held on July 3, 2024.
In a release, the RBI maintained that Sanjay Malhotra, while dwelling upon IT risk management and cyber security, urged banks to have an enhanced oversight over third-party service providers for mitigation of the risks emanating from them. The need for RBI and banks to work together closely was emphasized and suggestions were sought from the banks on enhancing the ease of doing business.
In his opening remarks, Sanjay Malhotra acknowledged the important role played by the banks in building resilience of the domestic financial system while highlighting some of the main vulnerabilities present globally that can pose downside risks. He exhorted the banks to ensure continued financial stability, deepen financial inclusion, improve digital literacy, enhance availability and affordability of credit, strengthen customer service and grievance redress mechanism, and continue to invest in technology.
Earlier, with the liquidity deficit in the banking system hitting multi-year highs last week, the RBI also announced a slew of measures to ease the situation. The central bank will hold open market operations (OMOs) of Rs 60,000 crore in three tranches of Rs 20,000 crore on January 30, February 13 and February 20.