of debt markets and interest rate flexibility in the budget for 2001 - 02. no doubt, in all the budgets there is progressive liberalisation of capital account. in brief, the budgets over the last three years have contained larger and wider reference to reforms in the financial sector. the canvass is spreading from banks to financial markets. during the period, the regulatory jurisdiction of rbi was fine tuned and clarified through amendments to securities contract regulations act, and enactment of foreign exchange management act. while these are some of the several governmental initiatives, significant changes in legal and institutional framework are necessary for further progress in reform of financial sector. banks elaborating on issues related to banks, in this gathering would certainly be superfluous. suffice it to say that there has been noticeable progress in respect of all the four issues flagged before viz. internal control systems, placement and work practices, flexibility in hiring people and use of technology in banks. however, there is a long way for public sector banks to traverse from current industry - wise approaches to bank - wise autonomy to enhance efficiency and profitability. it may be worthwhile to chart a roadmap for genuine autonomy for public sector banks consistent with principles of good corporate governance. conclusion in brief, a notable part of agenda for reform has been completed and in the process, some items not in the original medium - term agenda became necessary for reform. currently, the focus is rightly shifting to legislation, markets, technology and beyond banks to nonbanks. it is also evident that reforms can succeed only and only if coordinated efforts are made by rbi, government of india and banks, themselves. it must, however, be recognized that key to financial sector reform is banking reform ; key to banking reform is public sector banking reform ; and key to public sector banking sector reform is government ’ s initiative. finally, you would appreciate that, by and large, we in rbi try to be aware of what is desirable and we are implementing whatever is feasible. before concluding, i must mention that the tasks ahead of you listed by the iba are appropriate, complex, and urgent. these are broadly divided into four areas viz. human resources management, technology, structure of banking, and sound banking. the banks ’ sports board, a relatively recent institution has already impressive achievements to its credit and is bound to advance the course of national sports in the coming year also. i have great pleasure in wishing you all the best on this happy occasion. thanking you all again!

. the indian experience the rbi as a full - service central bank has employed emerging technologies in virtually all its functions while also encouraging their adoption in various parts of the financial system. this has also involved spearheading innovation and building up the digital public infrastructure. as a result, a recent assessment has found that the usage of ai related keywords in indian banks has increased sizeably4. a survey conducted by the rbi at end june - 2023 revealed that almost three - fourths of indian banks and several non - banking financial companies ( nbfcs ) have developed chatbots and virtual assistants. increased collaboration of banks and nbfcs with fintechs has facilitated introduction of model - based lending. within the rbi, big data analytics, ai and ml have been extensively employed in monetary policy, research and data management functions. examples include use of ai powered tools to refine the quality of banking statistics ; building of hybrid models that combine traditional statistical methods with ml tools for forecasting and nowcasting ; applications of natural language processing ( nlp ) for classification of internal audit reports ; and analyses of the textual complexity of banking regulations. the use of unconventional data like media sentiment is undertaken for assessing the effectiveness of central bank communication. other applications include tracking inflation through online food prices and assessing crop production from remote sensing data. on the supervisory front, the advanced supervisory analytics group ( asag ) has been set up to leverage ml models for social media analytics, know your customer ( kyc ) 3 / 6 bis - central bankers'speeches compliances and for gauging governance effectiveness. the establishment of an advanced off - site supervisory monitoring system - daksh – is helping to digitalise supervisory processes. an integrated compliance management and tracking system ( icmts ) and a centralised information management system ( cims ) are two major suptech initiatives being implemented for seamless reporting by supervised entities for enhancing data management and data analytics capabilities, respectively. on the digital financial inclusion front, the rbi innovation hub has pioneered the delivery of farm loans or kisan credit card ( kcc ) loans in a fully digital and hassle - free manner. the rbi has also facilitated setting up of digital banking units ( dbus ) by commercial banks, which will enable broader access to cost effective and convenient digital financial products and services. the rbi's innovations in payment and settlement systems have been recognised the world over. it is now building upon the success of india's fast payment system – the unified payment