RBI data centre to strengthen payment systems, cyber resilience

RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra says the new Bhubaneswar data centre will bolster the resilience of India’s critical financial systems, including RTGS and NEFT.

A data centre is the heart and nerve centre of any organisation, especially the central bank of a country, Malhotra told a news channel after the inauguration.

Information technology is no longer a support function for the RBI but a core function because all its applications for the public, consumers and internal use run on it, he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the RBI’s data centre and cybersecurity training institute in Bhubaneswar on Sunday. The facility will house the central bank’s mission-critical systems, including the Real Time Gross Settlement, or RTGS, and National Electronic Funds Transfer, or NEFT, systems.

The cybersecurity training institute will build expertise in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, the RBI said in a press release.

Malhotra said the data centre would improve the quality and efficiency of services offered to citizens while strengthening the resilience of the broader financial system.

“It is sovereign. We do not depend on third-party cloud service providers; we have our own data centre,” he said.

One-third of the site has been allocated to the data centre, while two-thirds has been earmarked for the cybersecurity training institute.

The institute will train RBI employees and personnel from banks and other financial institutions in areas such as artificial intelligence, big-data analytics, quantum computing and blockchain. It will also undertake research aimed at making financial systems more secure and efficient.

“Cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important, especially in the wake of artificial intelligence,” Malhotra said. “It is important that we train not only our own RBI personnel but also people from banks and other financial system organisations.”

The Bhubaneswar location was chosen partly because the RBI’s three existing data centres are in Maharashtra. Its geographical distance from those centres and location in a different seismic zone will provide greater diversification, while the availability of skilled workers was another factor, he said.

The RBI’s payment systems operate around the clock. Although the Unified Payments Interface is operated by the National Payments Corporation of India, the final settlement of UPI transactions takes place through the central bank’s data centres and applications, Malhotra said.

The RBI also operates the e-Kuber platform, which provides banking services to the central and state governments and banks, as well as the technology platform supporting its integrated ombudsman system.