RBI for more secured environment in banking sector

Calling for a more secured environment in the Indian banking system, a senior official of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today said banks need to have technology enabled processes to earn full faith on the customers.

"I would like to reiterate that a basic principle of information security is to be ahead of the curve and hence there is a need for robust and comprehensive measures. Further, we need to demonstrate effectively that we cannot let our doors open to cyber criminals, fraudsters and terrorists to break the faith of customers in our banking system," RBI Executive Director G Gopalakrishnan told a seminar here.

"We need to ensure robust technology related controls and processes at all commercial banks to facilitate customer confidence in our banking system," he said.

He said the central bank was very sensitive to the issue and added that "all the stakeholders need to ensure that we [banks] do not lose our guard during our journey ahead. The Working Group's report can be considered to be a key deliverable in this context".

The Working Group is an outcome of a study conducted by Frauds Monitoring Cell of Department of Banking Supervision, RBI.

Earlier, Gopalakrishnan said some of the banks should have a more comprehensive information security polices.

"The implementation is not effective, capacity management plans are not robust, appropriate vendor exit strategies are not in place. The process of designing and development of awareness programmes for customers is not in place," he said.

He said there was a need to see tangible benefits to both customers and banks arising from effective implementation of guidelines by banks.