Bengaluru, NFAPost: Senapathy (Kris) Gopalakrishnan, co-founder and former co-Chairman, Infosys, has been appointed as the first Chairperson of the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) while announcing its Monetary Policy Statement on Development and Regulatory
Policies in the last August had announced that the bank will set up Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) to promote innovation across the financial sector by leveraging on technology and creating an environment which would facilitate and foster innovation.
In a statement, RBI stated that RBIH would be guided and managed by a Governing Council (GC) led by a Chairperson.
“The Reserve Bank has appointed Shri Senapathy (Kris) Gopalakrishnan, co-founder and former co-Chairman, Infosys, as the first Chairperson of the RBIH. Gopalakrishnan is currently the Chief Mentor of Start-up Village, an incubation hub for start-ups. The other members of the Governing Council are as below,” states the apex bank in a statement.
RBIH would be guided and managed by a governing council led by a Chairperson, the central bank said.
Other members of the governing council are CEO (to be appointed), Ashok Jhunjhunwala (Institute Professor, IIT, Madras), H Krishnamurthy (Principal Research Scientist, IISc, Bengaluru), Gopal Srinivasan (CMD, TVS Capital Funds), A P Hota (Former CEO, NPCI), Mrutyunjay Mahapatra (Former CMD, Syndicate Bank), T Rabi Sankar (Executive Director, RBI), Deepak Kumar (CGM, Department of Information Technology, RBI), and K Nikhila (Director, Institute for Development & Research in Banking Technology, Hyderabad).
The RBIH shall create an eco-system that would focus on promoting access to financial services and products, RBI said, and added “this will also promote financial inclusion”.
The Hub will collaborate with financial sector institutions, technology industry and academic institutions and coordinate efforts for exchange of ideas and development of prototypes related to financial innovations. It would develop internal infrastructure to promote fintech research and facilitate engagement with innovators and start-ups.
The Reserve Bank had stated that it constantly endeavoured to encourage responsible innovation by entities in the financial services sector.
“The Regulatory Sandbox framework was one such recent initiative in which Digital Payments were the first cohort. Six proposals were accepted under the Sandbox, the pilot studies/trials of which have been delayed on account of the present COVID-19 situation,” stated RBI.
Areas such as cyber security, data analytics, delivery platforms, payments services, etc., remain in the forefront when there comes innovation in the financial sector.
The Reserve Bank’s Innovation Hub will act as a centre for ideation and incubation of new capabilities which can be leveraged to create innovative and viable financial products and/or services to help achieve the wider objectives of deepening financial inclusion, efficient banking services, business continuity in times of emergency, strengthening consumer protection, etc. The Innovation Hub will support, promote and hand-hold cross-thinking spanning regulatory remits and national boundaries.
