. therefore, the wallet has emerged as a safe and secure mode of payment. such wallets are vying for the space which was earlier occupied by debit cards. reserve bank has been bis central bankers ’ speeches authorizing banks / non - banks for issuing e - wallets / mobile wallets which is being used extensively for bill payment, recharge apart from e - commerce transaction. in fact, we are already at the stage, when the e - commerce has encroached in to the banking territory. the day is not far off when the banks would be viewed more as technology companies offering banking products and services. while this will be a new challenge for the sector, i see this as opportunity for banks to find new growth driver. prime minister ’ s digital india initiative 20. the recently launched prime minister digital india initiative aims at integrating the government and related departments and the public with the objective of making public services available to citizens electronically by reducing paperwork. the digital india initiative aims at creation of nationwide digital infrastructure ( broadband / high speed internet ), delivery of government services digitally and also increasing digital literacy. this initiative, in my view, will bring in enormous opportunity for banks to innovate and expand services to vast majority of rural population though electronic deliverables. as discussed in the last year ’ s banking conclave ( gyan sangam ) in pune, the top 30 processes in a public sector bank account for around 50 % of costs in back office and over 80 % of customer facing activities. if banks can take steps to digitise the top 30 processes quickly to improve customer experience and cut costs then they can reap huge efficiency and profitability gains. this would involve : a ) defining the revised workflow, b ) redefining technology where needed to transform the processes, and c ) driving change management across the bank to adopt new processes. big data 21. as the participants would be aware, big data ( bd ) is a broad term for data sets so large or complex that traditional data processing applications are inadequate to handle such data. an example of big data might be petabytes ( 1, 024 terabytes ) or exabytes ( 1, 024 petabytes ) of data consisting of billions to trillions of records of millions of customers. with the amount of data generated today, one would not be surprised that very soon all of us have to deal with bd in day - to - day operations. in the scenario,

financial inclusion and human resources. if one looks in to these seven areas, one would notice that it plays a very significant role for achieving strategic goals in all these areas of focus. therefore, it governance and it strategy by themselves also need to be a major responsibility of the board. unfortunately while the concept of corporate governance is well appreciated for long, the it governance has started getting the rightful attention by banks only recently. why and what of it governance 6. in one way it governance can be defined as the decision rights and accountability framework for encouraging desirable behavior in the use of it 1. the it governance provides a framework for ensuring that the information technology decisions take into consideration the business goals and objectives of an organization. as is the case with corporate governance which aids an organization to ensure that major decisions are in alignment with the organizational vision, mission and strategy, it governance ensures that it - related key decisions match the organization - wide objectives over a long term horizon. 7. the it governance exists within corporations to guide it initiatives and ensure that the performance of it meets the corporate objectives. a well placed it policy and structured it governance set - up along with corporate managers combine to ensure that it is synchronized with the business and delivers value to the firm. in the it governance framework, issues and strategic importance of it need to be clearly understood so that the organization can implement its strategies effectively to face the growing market competition on a sustained basis. a bank ’ s vision for it governance must incorporate ideas and information about the way it executes its business strategy. it is about how one operationalises the strategy and subsequently capitalizes on market opportunity. it is only at the lower levels of framework that the it governance is about decision rights, compliance with regulations, setting standards, etc. and while i do not intend to minimize the importance of these operational elements in the it governance, i do feel that if a bank ’ s it governance is primarily about being compliant and secondarily about business execution, then banks ’ business is not likely to benefit strategically from the it. one would then miss out on the larger opportunity that it governance offers. weill, p. & ross, j. w., 2004, it governance : how top performers manage it decision rights for superior results ”, harvard business school press, boston. bis central bankers ’ speeches board driven it strategy 8. it strategy being a part of corporate strategy, should be driven by the board. all the aspects of technology management, namely, cost, human capital