Blindly adopting tech without understanding its biases can be counter-productive: RBI ED

Financial innovations need to be responsible and one must not "blindly" adopt the latest technological breakthroughs, Reserve Bank's Executive Director Ajay Choudhary said on Thursday. "A blind adoption without understanding the biases that the models build with the help of adoption of advanced tech could prove counterproductive in many cases," Choudhary said addressing an event by industry lobby Assocham in Mumbai.

It is also desirable that models should be built over sufficiently large time-series data, he added.

The RBI is focused on adapting newer innovations, he said, adding that newer technologies like artificial intelligence, the internet of things, blockchain, quantum computing, big data analytics, and 5G bring a lot of disruptive benefits.


Stating that we need to "ensure that the disruptions are constructive", Choudhary said the risks posed by them should be well understood and managed.

Addressing the startups, he said the innovations should also be scalable and inter-operable, which would enable scaling up the benefits to the larger ecosystem like India.

We also need to pay sufficient attention to other critical aspects like cyber-security, data privacy, data storage and how the data is used, he said, adding customer protection through good governance standards is also essential.

Choudhary said all these things need to be kept in mind keeping the need for long-term sustenance of the interventions, which will be finally adopted.

"The tech innovations make incredible feats possible. There are trade-offs between policy objectives such as fostering innovation on the one hand, which is one of our motives while addressing the challenges related to the robust governance surrounding the tech, market integrity, conduct, customer and investor protection, consultation issues, competition issues, financial exposure and others," he added.