RBI sets up 8-member panel on ethical use of AI

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has set up a high-level, eight-member committee to develop a Framework for Responsible and Ethical Enablement of Artificial Intelligence (FREE-AI) in the financial sector.

The committee will be chaired by Pushpak Bhattacharyya, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay.

The panel also comprises of Debjani Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, NITI Aayog and Independent Director, Reserve Bank Innovation Hub and ex-President NASSCOM; Balaraman Ravindran, Professor and Head of the Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI at IIT Madras; Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology; Rahul Matthan, Partner at Trilegal; Anjani Rathor, Group Head and Chief Digital Experience Officer at HDFC Bank; Hari Nagaralu, Head of Security AI Research at Microsoft India; and Suvendu Pati, CGM, Finetch Department, Reserve Bank of India.

Pati will act as the Member Secretary.

Fintech department, Central Office, RBI will provide the secretarial support to the committee.

According to the circular issued on December 26, the committee can also invite domain experts, industry representatives, RBI departments and other stakeholders, as may be required, for consultations and to participate in its deliberations.

The panel reportedly is expected to submit its report within six months of its first meeting.

The terms of reference of the committee include: to assess the level of adoption of AI n financial services, globally and in India; and to review regulatory and supervisory approaches on AI with focus on financial sector globally.

The key objective of the committee is to establish a governance framework to guide ethical AI adoption across financial institutions, including banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), Fintechs, and payment system operators (PSOs).