The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will set up a cloud facility for the financial sector in India to secure financial sector data and help with scalability and business continuity, the central bank announced on Friday.
The Indian Financial Technology and Allied Services (IFTAS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the RBI, will set up and operate the cloud facility initially and it will later be transferred to a separate entity owned by the financial sector participants, said the bank.
The RBI will also operationalise a fintech repository by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub by April 2024 that would have information about their activities, products, technology stack, financial information etc.
However, providing information for this repository would be voluntary for fintech companies. Information from this repository will be used for policy-making, RBI said.
RBI deputy governor T Rabi Shankar said that the idea to set up a public cloud was not prompted by data sovereignty concerns but to help with efficiency, especially for smaller entities and cooperative banks.
“This provides a lot of efficiency in terms of scale because for each one to make their own database involves a large amount of investment and skill, which this cloud is expected to provide. … At this point, our idea is to just give it a push and let it start off and then let the system manage,” Shankar said.
