##rs. the fintech ecosystem in india has indeed evolved and is poised for a giant leap. 10. let me now touch upon some of the other initiatives taken by the rbi in this area. the regulatory sandbox framework was released in august 2019 with a view to foster innovation. with this, the reserve bank entered the select group countries that have their very own regulatory sandbox ecosystem. after four theme - based cohorts on retail payments, cross - border payments, msme lending and prevention of financial frauds, a theme neutral fifth cohort was announced earlier this month. it reflects our keen desire to increase the footprint of innovation in the fintech space. the success stories emanating from our regulatory sandbox initiative include, among others, the ‘ framework for facilitating small value digital payments in offline mode ’ and the recently launched upi123pay which was aimed at enhancing digital financial inclusion by enabling over 40 crore feature phone users to access the benefits of upi in a safe and secure manner. 11. the reserve bank, for the first time, organised a global hackathon titled harbinger 2021 – with a view to make retail payments more innovative. this witnessed enthusiastic response. we received 363 proposals including 22 from abroad from countries like the usa and the uk. this exercise gave us a glimpse of the creative talent pool that india possesses and reinforced our belief that india is well positioned to provide leadership in the fintech space. i understand that the winners of harbinger 2021 are also participating in this global fintech festival to further showcase their creativity and talent. 12. more recently, the rbi has set up the reserve bank innovation hub ( rbih ) as a subsidiary in bengaluru. the hub has an eminent board of directors drawn from the private sector and domain experts. the rbih is currently undertaking several important projects. i am confident that going forward, the rbih will benchmark itself as a centre of excellence. 13. we have also created a new fintech department in the rbi from january 2022 to give focused attention to this evolving and dynamic sector. the objective of this department is not only to promote innovation, but also identify the associated challenges and opportunities and address them in a timely manner. all matters relating to facilitation of constructive innovations and incubations in the fintech space, with wider implications for the financial sector and markets, are being dealt with by this department, in addition to inter - regulatory issues and international cooperation. 14

should support the enterprise business strategy. further, the governance oversight also should ensure putting in place processes by which proper coordination is established at organisational level between cio / cto and ceo with members across the business units so that the it deployment strategy synchronises with the business strategy in order to harness the full capability of the it systems. notwithstanding the timelines – be it short term or long term – it is the turnaround time of the it strategy and its implementation that would be critical to the success of any business strategy. therefore, at the board level it would be imperative to ensure that the business and it units are not driven in silos. some of the important questions that arise in this context are : who decides it resource / asset requirement? is it by it team or by business team? or is it board driven? investment in it is a strategic decision which will have large long term impact on the bank. it is proven fact that the it strategy of the firm and its declaration of it investment plan impact the value of the firm. 2 it strategy can be deployed differently in different circumstances and include : automate – i. e. substituting manual intervention with automated business processes provide information, at the asking, for decision making – i. e. provide correct information about business activities to senior management on time for taking right decision and also provide information about business activities to employees across the firm transform – fundamentally redefine business and industry processes and relationships combination of the above – while under normal circumstances automation could evolve over a period of time, in an incremental manner, typically in kaizen mode, the sudden challenge of the quickly changing business environment may need sweeping transformation, in the kaikaku mode. it is important for any bank to be certain about what strategy they are following. when banks took upon the core banking implementation challenge, what was actually targeted? was it 100 % branches coverage or effective managerial control over the banking assets and liabilities or mis or merely regulatory compliance and in the process harnessing residual benefits? was it “ automate ” strategy or simple “ mechanisation ”? or was it the “ transform ” strategy? even after many years of cbs implementation banks are struggling to provide information required for decision making or not able to automate the regulatory report “ the value relevance of announcement of transformational information technology investment ” – bruce dehning, veron j. richardson and robert w amud bis central bankers ’ speeches requirements out of cbs. this raises the