AI is both threat & opportunity for Fintech: DFS Secy Nagaraju

Flagging a new frontier in financial technology, Department of Financial Services (DFS) Secretary M Nagaraju said India's fintech sector is moving "from scale to complexity", where expectations are higher, risks are sharper, and systems will be tested far more rigorously.

Addressing the PICUP Fintech Conference and Awards organised by FICCI in Delhi on Thursday, Nagaraju pointed to the rising discourse around artificial intelligence (AI) — referring to what he called the "Anthropic Mythos" — describing it as both a threat and an opportunity for the fintech industry to experiment and find solutions. He urged the sector to actively explore what can be done to harness this emerging technology responsibly.

Looking ahead to Vision 2030, Nagaraju called AI a critical enabler — not a disruptor — of responsible financial inclusion. AI-driven underwriting, he said, can assess creditworthiness using alternative data sources such as digital transaction histories, GST records, telecom data, and information shared through the account aggregator framework, making it possible to lend to first-time borrowers and small enterprises with better risk management.                         

-ANI