GFF 2026: Digital finance has scaled, now trust and resilience must catch up, says RBI’s Deputy Governor Murmu

India’s digital finance ecosystem has moved beyond the challenge of access and scale, with the next phase requiring greater emphasis on trust, resilience, customer protection and accountability as technology becomes deeply embedded in everyday financial activity, Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Shirish Chandra Murmu said.

Speaking at the Global Fintech Fest, Murmu said technology had transformed how financial commitments are created and executed, but could not replace the trust that underpins banking, payments, lending and digital identity.

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“Trust is the bedrock of finance,” he said, adding that as finance becomes more digital, instantaneous and interconnected, the importance of trust only increases.

The shift has also made the underlying financial ecosystem more complex. A digital payment that takes seconds can involve multiple institutions, platforms, networks and security protocols, while a loan originated through a mobile application can bring together lenders, lending service providers, data providers, credit information companies and algorithms.

For regulators, Murmu said, the challenge is therefore not only to preserve a simple customer experience but also to ensure accountability across the wider ecosystem.

From access to trust

India’s digital financial journey has evolved from expanding access to driving adoption and scale, with the next stage focused on the quality and resilience of those systems.

India is now the world’s third-largest fintech ecosystem, with more than 14,000 entities and the sector growing at around 14% annually, while cumulative investment has exceeded $40 billion over the past decade, according to Murmu, citing IMF data.

The expansion has been supported by wider bank-account penetration, Aadhaar, mobile connectivity and interoperable payment infrastructure. As of August 2026, more than 59 crore Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana accounts had been opened, creating a broad base for digital financial services.

The Reserve Bank’s digital payments index rose from a base of 100 in March 2018 to 516 in September 2025, while its financial inclusion index increased to 70 in March 2026 from 67 a year earlier. Murmu noted that the latest improvement in financial inclusion was driven largely by greater usage rather than simply wider access.

UPI illustrates the scale of that transformation. In financial year 2025-26, the platform processed about 24,162 crore transactions worth roughly Rs 314 lakh crore, accounting for around 85% of India’s digital payment transactions by volume.

India now accounts for close to half of the world’s real-time payment transactions. But the scale also changes the nature of risk, with disruptions or security incidents potentially affecting commerce and everyday life far beyond individual transactions.

Fraud, cyber risk move to centre stage

Murmu identified operational resilience, cyber resilience, fraud prevention and customer protection as four key priorities for India’s digital financial infrastructure.

Payment systems operating round the clock need redundancy, business continuity, incident-response and recovery mechanisms built into their architecture, he said. Cybersecurity, meanwhile, can no longer be treated as merely an IT function because vulnerabilities at one participant can have consequences across the wider ecosystem.

The exclusive `.bank.in` domain for banks is one such measure aimed at helping customers distinguish genuine banking websites from fraudulent ones.

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Fraud prevention also needs a broader ecosystem approach, spanning banks, payment operators, fintech companies, telecom providers and law-enforcement agencies. Murmu said the RBI is developing a digital payments intelligence platform through the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, while its MuleHunter.AI initiative uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify mule accounts used to channel fraud proceeds.

The central bank has also issued a discussion paper on curbing digital payment fraud, particularly authorised post-payment frauds, with responses currently under examination.

As digital payments become faster, the window to detect and reverse fraud or errors also becomes shorter. Customer awareness, grievance redressal, transaction monitoring and appropriate authentication therefore remain critical, Murmu said.

“The measure of success for a payment system then is not only the number of transactions it processes each second. It is the trust embedded in each of those transactions,” he said.

Inclusion has to go beyond smartphones

Murmu also cautioned that greater digitisation could unintentionally exclude people with limited connectivity, low digital literacy, disabilities, language barriers or no smartphones.

A genuinely inclusive financial system must therefore support multiple modes of access, rather than assume that every customer can use the same digital tools. UPI 123Pay, offline payments and the Aadhaar-enabled payment system are among the mechanisms that can extend digital finance to customers in less-connected and assisted environments.

He urged the industry to treat inclusion as a design requirement rather than an afterthought, arguing that products designed for the most capable users and subsequently adapted for others often fail to reach the last mile.

The same principle applies to digital lending. Technology can reduce the cost of originating, assessing and servicing small loans and help regulated lenders reach customers who were previously uneconomical to serve. But the objective should be to widen access to formal credit, rather than simply make existing lending processes faster.

Technology cannot dilute responsibility

Murmu said the RBI’s Digital Lending Directions, 2025, were built around the principle that technology can change the channel through which credit is delivered but cannot dilute the responsibility of the regulated lender.

Borrowers must understand who is lending to them, the cost of the loan and its terms, while technology should expand customer choice rather than steer borrowers towards unsuitable products.

“Technology can distribute a service, but it cannot distribute responsibility,” he said.

Data-driven finance, he added, must also be trust-driven. Customer consent should be genuine, data collection proportionate to its purpose and security maintained throughout the credit lifecycle.

The growing use of algorithms in financial decisions raises another question of accountability. Models can help identify creditworthy borrowers who might otherwise remain outside formal finance, but can also embed historical biases, rely on inappropriate assumptions or produce decisions that are difficult to explain.

“When an algorithm makes or materially influences a financial decision, who is accountable? The answer cannot be the algorithm,” Murmu said.

Responsibility, he said, remains with the regulated institution, with boards and senior management expected to understand the models they deploy, their limitations and their consequences.