Here's what RBI DG Rohit Jain said on need for more safeguards at GFF 2026

As technology usage grows and financial institutions scale up innovation, there is also a greater need to put in more safeguards in place, according to Rohit Jain, the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

"Let us not forget that there is always someone at the other end of the technology. There is a saver entrusting an institution with hard­earned money, a borrower seeking an opportunity, a merchant awaiting a payment, or a family depending on the financial system when it matters most. That is ultimately where our responsibility lies, " he stressed.

The obligation to treat customers fairly did not change because an algorithm influenced the decision, according to Jain. Similarly, he said, responsibility for managing risk didn't disappear because a model or technology was supplied by a third party, he said the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai.

He sees three key concerns as emerging technologies become more deeply embedded in finance - speed, concentration and opacity. None of these risks, he said is entirely new, but technology can amplify them and allow their effects to travel through the financial system in ways that are faster, wider and sometimes harder to detect.

Jain also pointed that while emerging technologies can make financial services faster, cheaper and more accessible, the key question was whether they solve a genuine financial problem better, who benefits, and what new costs or risks may arise in the process.

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"A solution, however well-intentioned or technologically impressive, has little value if it does not address the problem that actually needs solving. Technology should therefore remain a means to an end. The starting point has to be the purpose it is intended to serve, " he said.

Jain stated that institutions must be able to detect problems early and intervene before small mistakes become large.

Another important point Jain raised was that financial institutions may rely on a relatively small number of cloud providers, technology vendors and model providers, often using similar technoligical infrastructure. So, there was a concern that such a common dependency could transmit disruption or error across many institutions at the same time, he noted.

Technology evolution also created a difficult questions for policymakers, around when should policy intervene and how could it do so without curbing useful innovation, Jain felt.

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He noted that should regulations step in too early, there was a risk of writing detailed rules for a technology one didnot yet fully understand, or for an architecture that may change before the rules took effect. At the same time if the regulations came in too late, the technology may already be deeply embedded before its risks are fully understood and addressed, he added.