of the disruption. in such attacks, recovery requires different integrity verification checks than recovery from a natural disaster or data centre failure. the time needed to find out the root cause and be operational once again within a period of two hours can be a great challenge ; the operational impact would be that it may cause financial market disruption. this also raises questions relating to the definition of rto in cases where the data / system integrity is lost. way forward 31. there are exciting times ahead of us! let me just flag a few areas which have the potential to create efficiencies and values in the long run. today, banks have that rare opportunity to reinvent themselves again – with data and analytics. major decisions to drive revenue, to control costs, or to mitigate risks can be infused with data and analytics. analytics can be used by banks to gain a competitive edge – by improving risk assessment, fraud prevention and predicting customer behaviour. in fact in its it vision, the reserve bank has stressed upon the usage of analytics for improvement of customer relationship management ( crm ), risk management and fraud detection / prevention. 32. with the world economy opening up and businesses covering many different geographies and economies, the need for a common reporting format has never been more urgent. accounting and auditing are done differently in different places, which has given rise to the present - day push for implementing irfs, a common financial reporting standard. 33. but that said, the first step towards regulatory compliance is the need to get control over the various scattered sources of data and integrate them into a centralized system. that is what we hope the adf has achieved. but i also hope banks will use this opportunity to develop mis beyond the regulatory prescriptions as well. 34. the other technology that is being talked about and has a lot of potential is big data and its capabilities. big data refers to large repositories of corporate and external data to uncover trends, statistics, and other actionable information to help decide on the next move. huge amounts of data is being created by banks on a daily basis – both structured and unstructured. not only are banks struggling to keep rate and pace of this data but also are unable to use it in a meaningful way to improve services and customer experience. 35. the reserve bank of india has set up the data warehouse which has the potential to meet the mis and dss requirements – both within the bank and outside. it is working towards further enhancing the useful

banks'balance sheets. on - site supervision is complemented with off - site surveillance, which harnesses suptech, big data analytics and cyber security drills. more recently, a virtuous credit upswing has taken root alongside a strong improvement in bank profitability. stress tests for credit risk and interest rate risk reveal that banks would remain above minimum capital requirements even under severe stress scenarios. macroeconomic and financial stability are providing the foundation for medium - term growth prospects. fifth, india is undergoing a transformative change leveraged on technology. the trinity of jam – jan dhan ( basic no - frills accounts ) ; aadhaar ( universal unique identification ) ; and mobile phone connections – is expanding the ambit of formal finance, boosting tech start - ups and enabling the targeting of direct benefit transfers. india's unified payments'interface ( upi ), an open - ended system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application of any participating bank, is propelling inter - bank, peer - to - peer, and person - to - merchant transactions seamlessly. payment systems in india operate on a 24 by 7 by 365 basis. functionalities like offline payments, feature phone payments and conversational payments have been incorporated. the internationalisation of the upi is progressing rapidly. sixth, inflation in india is moderating after surging on multiple and overlapping supply shocks from the pandemic, weather - induced food price spikes, supply chain disruptions and global commodity price pressures following the russia - ukraine conflict. notably, however, inflation in india peaked early in response to coordinated monetary - fiscal policies to anchor inflation expectations and dissipate idiosyncratic food price pressures. as a result, inflation has fallen back into the tolerance band since september 2023, with core inflation steadily ebbing to even below the target. the coordinated approach allowed the rbi to look through the first - round effects of food price shocks so that supply management balanced supply with demand. this minimised the financial stability and growth risks of monetary policy tightening. challenges india has emerged from the pandemic scarred but resilient and poised to make a tryst with its developmental ambitions by riding the thermals that these opportunities are generating. take - off will have to contend with the headwinds posed by several challenges. again, i propose to be selective in the interest of time. reaping the demographic dividend hinges around expanding the contribution of the workforce to gdp growth. currently,