In April 2015, the Fifth Conference of Chief Information Officers of Banks (CIOs/IT Heads) was held at IDRBT. A majority of the CIOs/IT Heads of Banks participated in this meeting, wherein Director, IDRBT, proposed the idea of forming a CIO Forum. The proposal elicited an overwhelming support from all the delegates and the Institute initiated the process of forming a CIO Forum.

The Institute convened a meeting of a Core Group consisting of CIOs from banks to work out the modalities for the formation and the CIO Forum. This Core Group, in its meeting held on June 26, 2015 at IDRBT, decided to form The Indian Banks' CIO Forum (IBCF).

Dr. Raghuram G. Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India & Visitor, IDRBT, inaugurated The Indian Banks' CIO Forum on October 23, 2015.

The CIOs / IT Heads of all Banks are members of the CIO Forum and the Forum meets at least twice a year. The Forum has five sub-groups to address specific issues and challenges in the following areas:

• Procurement and Vendor Management
• Product-based CBS User Groups
• Risk Management
• Regulatory Compliance
• Bank on the Move (Banking, Payments and Mobility).

The first meeting of the Forum was held on October 24, 2015, wherein the CIO were grouped into the five sub-groups to discuss concerns, challenges and opportunities in each of the above-mentioned areas and possible approaches that can be adopted fruitfully to address them.

The Second Meeting of the CIO Forum started off on April 11, 2016 with the IDRBT Banking Application Contest, wherein the CIOs had an engaging interaction with the teams and gave inputs for further refining their applications. The meeting also deliberated on strengthening cyber security and adopting best practices in Analytics.

The Third Meeting of the CIO Forum was held on July 17, 2016. This meet devoted full attention to exploring the ways and means for meeting the compliance requirements in tune with the circular on Cyber Security issued by the RBI, recently.

The CIO Forum is fast emerging as a very focused and fruitful platform to enable the best of technology in the Indian Banking and Financial Sector.

Dr. M.V. Sivakumaran, Senior Domain Expert, IDRBT, coordinates the CIO Forum.