The Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad, under the leadership of Prof. Sandeep Shukla, Director, IIIT-Hyderabad and Dr. Deepak Kumar, Director, IDRBT. The MoU was signed on December 20, 2025 in presence of Prof. H Krishnamurthy, Chief Research Scientist (Retd.), IISc, Bengaluru, who is Member of the Governing Council of both the Institutes.

Both Institutes agreed to jointly contribute in academics, research, training, student exchange and skill development in the area of BFSI for integration and efficient adoption and absorption of emerging technologies.

It was agreed to explore areas of collaboration for public welfare using the reach and capacity of both the Institutions. To begin with, joint PhD programs for researchers will be offered in areas beneficial to the banking system viz. digital payment ecosystem, cyber security & vulnerability management, adoption of AI for improvement of customer ease, security management, cryptography, blockchain, programmable money, fungible/non-fungible tokens, zero knowledge proof, API management, etc.

The engagement is aimed to enable research scholars to become industry/banking ready from employability point of view. Other mutual areas of collaboration could include standardization and validation efforts for technology in BFSI, development of domain specific SLMs, Cyber Security initiatives (including India specific authentication stack and algorithms), User Experience, etc.