Banking Round Table highlights: AI, bots the future but security a concern

Topics of the discussion included the recent data breach, regulating payments banks and the Unified Payments Interface

Business Standard Banking Round Table, 2016, started on Thursday, with the finest minds in Indian banking coming together and sharing their thoughts on digital disruption in the financial services sector in the second session of the day.

Here are the highlights of what the top banking honchos said:

1) Paytm Payments Bank CEO Shinjini Kumar said that digital transactions had made small value transactions possible. 

2) The fact that only 2,000 odd customers were actually impacted by the recent data breach shows that banks responded well, said ICICI Chief Technology and Digital Officer Madhivanan Balakrishnan. His remark came in the backdrop of a large data breach, after which several public and private sector banks recalled or blocked over 32 lakh debit cards to safeguard their customers from any financial fraud. (READ MORE ON THE DATA BREACH: Tackling cyber threats: Debit card breach shows India's vulnerability to data theft) 

3) What worries me is that when an incident happens each party says my system is safe, said Paytm Payments Bank's Shinjini Kumar.

4) India and South Asia MD of FIS, Ramas Venkatachalam, said that the security problem would not go away and that preparedness was the key. 

5) Venkatachalam said that the main question was how quickly could banks detect such breaches. He added that a framework was required to respond to unfavourable incidents.

6) In the pursuit of lowest cost per transaction, it is a fact that some compromises are being made, FIS' Venkatachalam added. 

7) Adoption of better firewalls, improvement of internal processes in terms of fraud management are the key requirements to deal with such breaches, said InfrasoftTech MD & CEO Rajesh Mirjankar.

8) Shinjini Kumar said that there was no doubt that payments banks needed to be regulated differently. She added that there was a reason why payments banks existed and hence should be treated differently.

9) Referring to the recently launched Unified Payments Interface (UPI), InfrasoftTech's Mirjankar said that it has made the system easier and that any inconvenience has to do more with the change.  ()

10) Peer-to-peer is the order of the day, let us see how it evolves, said Venkatachalam.

11) Talking about technological disruption, Digital Banking Country Head of HDFC Bank, Nitin Chugh, said that there would be bots and also master bot, so artificial intelligence would take digital to the next era. 

12) Wallets are playing a unique role and the size of the wallet is changing, said ICICI Bank's Madhivanan. 

13) Are you able to come up with innovations or partner and bring it out quickly is the question, said Chugh. 

14) Digital provides a level playing field for large banks and small banks, said Mirjankar. 

15) A bank cannot outsource its entire technology, they need a niche, Mirjankar added. 

16) Paytm Payments Bank's Shinjini Kumardelay said that delay in start of the payments banks should not be a cause for worry. She added, "We would like to start payments bank before Christmas."

17) In time, smaller banks will start adopting not just mobile banking but also bots, said Mirjankar.

18) Shinjini said that the Paytm Payments Bank is doing 70 per cent of its new KYCs (know your customer) using biometrics.

19) Bringing micro transactions into digital front is where the future is, said Madhivanan Balakrishnan. 

20) Appetite for credit is almost insatiable in rural India, said shinjini Kumar.