Jain calls technology architecture a first-order enterprise risk
Deputy Governor Rohit Jain emphasized that technology architecture has become a first-order enterprise risk for Indian banks. Speaking at the SBI Banking & Economic Conclave in Mumbai, Jain stated that governance must precede scale across digital payments and artificial intelligence.
From digital scale to systemic risk
India accounts for 49 percent of global real-time payment volume, with the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) processing 24.9 billion transactions worth ₹30.15 lakh crore in August 2026 alone.
Over the past decade, UPI transaction volumes grew nearly 13,000-fold, handling 24,162 crore transactions in fiscal year 2025–26. As India's share of global GDP rose from 6.8 percent in FY2021 to 8.2 percent in FY2026 on a purchasing power parity basis, technological scale has reshaped financial intermediation.
However, Jain cautioned that massive transaction volumes turn operational failures from minor institutional disruptions into systemic vulnerabilities, meaning technological resilience directly impacts financial stability.
Outsourcing without shedding accountability
Citing past disruptions like the 2018 cooperative bank cyberattack and the 2024 CrowdStrike outage, Jain warned that risk perimeters now extend across interconnected fintechs and cloud vendors.
“Technology may be outsourced, but not the accountability,” Jain noted.
He stressed that boards must oversee technology dependencies directly.
On artificial intelligence, Jain stated that automated tools can amplify operational errors just as rapidly as they improve processing efficiency.
Sound principles meet operational reality
The framework sets necessary boundaries for an ecosystem where scale outpaced security.
Yet holding boards accountable remains hollow without statutory power over third-party tech vendors.
Without binding vendor audits, systemic operational risks will remain entrenched across banks.