Indian Banking AI Credit, ₹2L Cr Impact
The fourth CNBC-TV18 Banking Transformation Summit, presented by Nucleus Software, was held four days after the Prime Minister’s Red Fort pledge to train a crore Indians in AI. The event, themed “Scaling Bharat: Powering Progress with Responsible AI,” gathered senior executives from banks, fintechs and NBFCs to discuss how artificial intelligence will reshape credit delivery and financial inclusion.
RBI Deputy Governor Shirish Chandra Murmu delivered the keynote, proposing a four‑tier responsible‑AI framework. The first tier is analytical intelligence derived from data and models; the second tier augments this with human experience and judgment; the third tier involves governance intelligence exercised by boards and senior management; the final tier validates outcomes through collective intelligence emerging at the system level.
A banking panel featuring Ashwini Kumar Tewari (MD, State Bank of India), Rajiv Anand (MD & CEO, IndusInd Bank), Ashok Chandra (MD & CEO, Punjab National Bank) and Sanjay Agarwal (MD & CEO, AU Small Finance Bank) addressed the “deposit dilemma.” They highlighted the slowdown in deposit growth and suggested innovative funding avenues such as infrastructure bonds, securitisation, transaction‑banking services and the adoption of wealth‑management and relationship‑management models traditionally used by private‑sector banks.
In a fireside chat, Keki Mistry (Non‑Executive Director, HDFC Bank) and former DFS Secretary M. Nagaraju examined strategic ambitions. Mistry emphasized demographic tailwinds as a growth catalyst, while Nagaraju pointed to strong MSME and agricultural‑lending performance and advocated raising the foreign‑direct‑investment limit in public‑sector banks to unlock additional capital for credit and improve bank valuations.
Vishnu R. Dusad, Co‑founder and MD of Nucleus Software, outlined the “intelligent stack” – three waves of banking technology: the initial creation of systems of record, the expansion of access via the internet, and the current automation of decision‑making through AI. He cautioned that AI‑driven underwriting demands rigorous governance because erroneous credit denial can have serious consequences.
A dedicated fintech and NBFC panel, with CEOs Anirban Mukherjee (PayU), Akash Sinha (Cashfree Payments), Miten Sampat (CRED), Sohini Rajola (NPCI) and Ranvir Singh (Kissht), discussed the future of UPI, upcoming merchant‑discount‑rate charges, and the impact of RBI’s draft circular on revolving credit. The panel estimated that the circular could curtail roughly ₹2 lakh crore of credit supply, posing a potential stumbling block for lending growth.
The summit concluded that trust and robust governance, coupled with collaboration among regulators, banks, financial institutions and technology providers, will determine how effectively AI can be scaled in India’s financial system and how confidently customers will adopt AI‑enabled services.