Page 49 - ASR_Forewords

Affordable Banking Technology
From the Director's Desktop...
IDRBT Recognised as Scien fic and
Industrial Research Organisa on (SIRO)
Recognising the research and development work
being carried out by the Ins tute, the Department of
Scien fic and Industrial Research, Ministry of Science
and Technology, Government of India, has bestowed
the status of Scien fic and Industrial Research
Organisa on (SIRO) on IDRBT.
This recogni on is a result of the research ac vi es
being carried out by the Ins tute in the niche area of
Banking Technology as well as the lab infrastructure
being built for carrying out such research ac vi es.
The recogni on helps the Ins tute to move ahead
with greater focus and speed towards realizing the
Ins tute's vision, “to be the premier and preferred
Research and Development Ins tu on on Financial
Sector Technology and its Management, working at
the intersec on of Banking and Technology for the
Indian Banking.”
The Ins tute's recogni on as a SIRO is valid for a
period of two years ll March 31, 2017.
Moore's Law is celebra ng Golden Jubilee. It was
fi y years back that Gordon Moore predicted that
the number of transistors on an affordable processor
would double every two years. To put it in simpler
terms, the processing speeds or the overall
processing power of the computers would double
every two years. Interes ngly, the chip manufacturers
have been designing and developing processors to
ensure that the exponen al growth predicted by
Moore con nues to hold.
If only there is a doubt about the law, it is not about
doubling but about two years. It is possible that it
was one year or one-and-a-half years or two years
during different periods of these fi y years. The pace
of developments in modern compu ng technology
has been rapidly changing the face of the world,
visibly so in sectors like health, media and banking.
Banking sector has been one of the large scale
adopters of technology. The faster processors have
led banks to build core banking solu ons and work
on big data, analy cs, social media and mobile
devices, which help banks in important ac vi es like
customer rela onship management, risk management
and fraud management.
Faster processing power and its adop on by banks
should meet twin objec ves – economic and social.
Increase in processing power should result in
decrease in processing costs which in turn should
result in reduc on of cost of a service provided by a
bank. It should lead to reduced transac on costs to
the ul mate consumer of banking services – the
customer. Cost reduc on should be the economic
goal of technology adop on.
Further, technology should help a bank reach its
services to customers across geographies and across
varied social and economic backgrounds. It is
especially relevant in countries like India, where a
reasonably large segment of the popula on is yet to
get the benefits of banking services. Financial
Inclusion has to be the social goal of technology
adop on.
The global manufacturing world con nues to work
on increasing the speed of processors. Indian
banking community should ensure the economic
and social benefits of their adop on. The focus of
research and development has to be necessarily on
affordable banking technology.
May 07, 2015 (Dr. A. S. Ramasastri)