The 21st Annual IBA Banking Technology Conference, Expo and Citations was held on 9th January 2026 at the Trident Hotel, Mumbai, on the theme ‘Responsible and Resilient Banking in the Age of AI.’ The event brought together senior leaders from banks, regulators, technology firms, and fintechs to deliberate on how artificial intelligence can be leveraged to drive innovation, efficiency, and inclusion, while ensuring that responsibility, resilience, and trust remain central to India’s banking system.

Opening session

The proceedings commenced with the ceremonial lighting of the lamp, followed by a welcome address by Gopal Murli Bhagat, Deputy Chief Executive, Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), who underlined IBA’s commitment to fostering responsible technology adoption across the banking sector. In his remarks, he highlighted that the conference theme reflects the dual imperative before banks today: rapidly scaling digital and AI-driven capabilities while preserving systemic stability, customer protection and ethical standards.

Delivering the special address, Aditya Gahlaut, Managing Director and Head of Asia, Global Trade Solutions, HSBC Hong Kong, traced the evolution of artificial intelligence and its growing applicability in trade finance and cross-border banking. He emphasised that AI-driven insights can significantly enhance risk management, operational efficiency, and the customer experience in global trade ecosystems when combined with high-quality data and robust governance frameworks.

Chief Guest's address

Chief Guest Shri M Nagaraju, IAS, Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, underscored the urgency of developing practical, scalable solutions to address the challenge of money mule accounts in the financial system. He observed that artificial intelligence, particularly Generative AI, will be a vital enabler for identifying suspicious patterns and predicting emerging risks, provided that models are anchored in sound data, robust governance, and clear accountability.

He urged banks to strengthen their risk mitigation frameworks through a combination of robust corporate governance structures, scalable and secure IT platforms, and comprehensive cyber risk prevention ecosystems. He further noted that AI-driven analytical models, when trained on global and domestic macroeconomic indicators, can help anticipate and prevent events with the potential to become catastrophic for the financial system, thereby enhancing systemic resilience.

Conference Session

The day-long conference featured a curated set of panel discussions interspersed with presentations by technology providers and consulting organisations, designed to explore AI-related themes from strategy, data, technology and risk perspectives. Parallelly, a comprehensive exposition showcased advanced banking technologies, products and services by leading Indian and global technology players, with a strong focus on responsible AI, data protection, cybersecurity, cloud solutions and digital public infrastructure.

In the expo area, sponsors and partners demonstrated solutions across kiosks on topics such as AI-enabled operations, digital product innovation, data privacy and data protection (including DPDP readiness), cyber defence platforms, and cloud-native architectures.

The IBA Technology Survey and Benchmarking Report on key technology, digital and analytics themes, based on survey submissions from participating banks, was also released during the event, providing sector-wide insights and benchmarks for member institutions.

Panel I – From efficiency to intelligence: agentic AI in operations

The first panel discussion explored the theme ‘From Efficiency to Intelligence: Reinventing Banking Operations with Agentic AI.’ The discussion examined how banks are moving beyond rules-based automation and traditional workflow tools to adopt adaptive, insight-driven and agentic AI systems that can learn, reason and act across complex operational journeys. Panellists highlighted the importance of high-quality, well-governed data, robust model risk management, and alignment with institutional values and customer expectations to ensure that operational AI remains transparent, auditable, and in line with regulatory norms.

To read more, please subscribe.