SRINAGAR: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Jammu on Saturday organised a one-day conference on financial sector initiatives and cyber security awareness at Hotel Taj Dal View in Srinagar, with officials discussing credit delivery, digital finance and measures to combat cyber fraud.
Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo attended the conference as chief guest, while RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain was the special guest. RBI Jammu Regional Director Prabhakar Jha was also present.
The conference brought together senior officials of the Jammu and Kashmir administration, police, banks and financial institutions, including Principal Secretary Home Chandraker Bharti, ADGP CID M.K. Sinha and senior officers from various departments.
Amitava Chatterjee, MD and CEO of J&K Bank, controlling and zonal heads of banks operating in the Union Territory, and representatives of the RBI Central Office, Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, NABARD, NPCI and RXIL also participated.
In his keynote address, Dulloo said the administration had prioritised sectors including tourism, agriculture and allied activities, hydropower and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and stressed the need to channelise credit towards these areas.
He called for greater agriculture term lending, upgrading existing self-help groups into viable enterprises and promoting handicrafts and niche products in the Union Territory.
Dulloo said the RBI’s Unified Lending Interface (ULI) could accelerate credit delivery, comparing its potential impact on lending with that of UPI on retail payments.
He also said the Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) could help address liquidity constraints faced by MSMEs and support their growth.
The Chief Secretary said the Central Bank Digital Currency, or Digital Rupee, and its programmability feature could provide possibilities for targeted subsidies under government welfare schemes.
On cyber security, Dulloo stressed the need for coordinated efforts by all stakeholders to reduce cyber fraud and urged participants to prepare actionable road maps based on the discussions held during the conference.
RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain said the central bank’s role extended beyond monetary policy and regulatory and supervisory functions to developmental areas, including payment and settlement systems, financial inclusion and market development.
He said ULI could facilitate seamless credit access to different sectors of the economy and contribute to wider financial inclusion.
Jain also highlighted the risks accompanying increased use of technology, particularly cyber fraud, and said the RBI was working with government authorities to address such challenges.
He referred to technology-driven measures including MuleHunter.ai for fraud detection, card tokenisation, the introduction of the ‘.bank.in’ domain, unified calling numbers and the compensation framework for unauthorised electronic banking transactions.
He stressed the need to strengthen public awareness about such measures to improve protection against financial fraud and maintain customer confidence in the banking system.
The conference featured thematic sessions on ULI and its rollout in J&K, the Digital Rupee, MuleHunter.ai, supervision of digital lending applications, card tokenisation, the ‘.bank.in’ domain, unified calling numbers and compensation for small-value fraudulent electronic banking transactions.
Sessions also covered the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), State Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (S4C), cybercrime methods in J&K, UPI fraud prevention measures and challenges related to TReDS in the Union Territory.
