Page 63 - ASR_Forewords

Foreword

From the Director's Desktop...

Vision 2020 nd Banking Technology Trajectory
a

N 1998, Dr. Abdul Kalam, a great visionary,

Iput forward a countrywide plan called
Technology Vision 2020, which he described as
a roadmap for transforming India from a less
developed to a developed society in 20 years.
Taking a cue from his vision, there have been
several documents detailing the path the
country is likely to travel in different areas,

including banking technology.
We all have witnessed the journey the country

has undertaken in achieving the goal it set for
itself about two-and-a-half decades back. In IDRBT, a unique Institute established by
particular, we have seen the banking sector Reserve Bank of India, has throughout this
moving steadily towards what we today call the period been playing a key role in the digital
digital banking. During the journey, banks have transformation of the banks. During the first
adopted relevant technology, including the two decades, it has focussed on building robust
latest like artificial intelligence, to enhance secure infrastructure, which was the need of the

efficiency of internal processes and efficacy of hour. The activities included setting up critical
user interfaces. They ensured that it was only on nationwide infrastructure like NFS (National
rare occasions the customer needed to walk into Financial Switch), INFINET (Indian Financial
a physical branch and that most of the services Network), SFMS (Structured Financial
and interactions could be carried through the Messaging System) and IBCC (Indian Banking
friendly mobile apps. Community Cloud). As these systems matured,
the same were transferred to companies like
The first two decades of the twenty first century
NPCI and IFTAS. While NPCI took over NFS, the
have also seen the birth of new organizations
other services were taken over by IFTAS, a
like NPCI, new players in the banking system
company promoted by IDRBT to manage them.
like payment banks, new challenging yet
cooperating entities called FinTechs and game In the meantime, the Institute has redefined its
changers like PPIs and P2Ps. Innovation has role from providing infrastructure services to
been the key to open new vistas of the banking. banking sector to an innovative hub working at

Fast Forward January 2020 01