The Institute started organising the Annual IDRBT Banking Application Contest (IBAC) in 2016 and the response to the contests have been encouraging.

Based on the feedback received from the contests as well as the Banking Sector, the Institute this year enhanced the scope of the contest to cover not just the Apps, but all the innovations in the area of Banking Technology. Accordingly, the contest has been renamed as “Banking Technology Innovation Contest”.

With a view to bring out innovations happening in the area of banking technology, the Institute organised the Third IDRBT Banking Technology Innovation Contest (IBTIC) on April 27, 2018 at IDRBT.

Technology Innovation is the key driver of banking today. Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Anticipatory Cyber Defence, Cloud Computing, Blockchain and even Drones have all been researched, adopted and implemented in banks for efficiency and convenience. Some of these areas are the themes of submission for IBTIC 2018.

This year, the contest attracted good response from across the country from academic institutions, start-ups, banks and IT companies. In order to ensure greater transparency and objectivity, the submissions were subjected to a rigorous screening process. An eminent jury shortlisted the Top-10 applications, which were invited for presentations.

The 10-shortlisted teams presented their innovations to the Chief Information Officers (CIO) Forum, which consists of IT Heads of various banks in India. Over twenty CIOs of various public and private sector banks participated and judged the innovations during the IBTIC 2018.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. A.S. Ramasastri, Director, IDRBT, highlighted the major activities taking place in the Institute. In particular, he explained how the Institute has enhanced the scope of research and development by:

• Signing MoUs with renowned academic institutions like NIT-Trichy, NIT-Warangal
• Filing of four patents out of which one approved patent in the area of Cyber Security for Malware Detection
• Conducting international conferences in the areas such as Fuzzy Neural Computing, Network Distribution
• Working closely with banks for Executive Development Programmes, Consultancy and importantly through forums viz., CIOs, CISOs, and CAOs.

Shri G. Padmanabhan, Chairman, Bank of India and Former Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India delivered the keynote address on “Winning in a Digital World”. In his address, he flagged few key issues as mentioned below:

• Banking sector is witnessing a seismic shift on account of FinTech innovation. This has resulted in a battle for customer relationship and customer data which will decide the future shape and role of banks
• Infrastructure-based technology, through platformification and open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), is reshaping the future of the financial services industry, while the operational advancements offered by robotic process automation (RPA), chatbots and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) are enabling greater agility, efficiency and accuracy
• Future partner potential should be assessed according to four parameters: People, Finance, Business and Technology
• Have a structured bug-hunting approach in order to integrate apps
• Ensuring a safe and robust financial sector cannot be an effort from an individual or a single organisation. Perfect coordination is called for to achieve a successful outcome.