Fortune India Banking & NBFCs Summit 2026: Technology, governance, and AI reshape India’s banking sector

India’s banking and financial services sector is undergoing a transformation driven by digital technology, artificial intelligence (AI), stronger governance, and evolving business models, with industry leaders at the Fortune India Banking & NBFCs Summit 2026 highlighting the need to balance growth with risk management and regulatory accountability. 

State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman C.S. Setty said technology investments had enabled the country’s largest lender to double its balance sheet since the consolidation of its associate banks without a corresponding increase in its branch network or employee strength. 

Speaking at a fireside chat titled Breaking into the Global Big League with V. Keshavdev, Executive Editor, Fortune India, Setty said digital transformation had helped SBI manage enormous transaction volumes while improving operating efficiency. “We handle 60 crore transactions every day, a volume that many banks may not process in an entire year,” Setty said, highlighting the scale at which technology enables the lender to operate. 

National Stock Exchange (NSE) Managing Director and CEO Ashish Chauhan, meanwhile, said the exchange would continue to prioritise its regulatory responsibilities over business considerations, even after its much-awaited public listing. Speaking at a fireside chat titled Compounding the India Growth Story with Sourav Majumdar, Editor-in-Chief of Fortune India and Group Head-Business Publications at RPSG Group, Chauhan said the NSE was already operating with the disclosures and accountability expected of a listed company. 

Chauhan also called for stronger safeguards in the derivatives market, suggesting that product suitability criteria, similar to those followed in some global markets, could make futures and options (F&O) trading safer for retail investors. He cautioned that repeated warnings from regulators and exchanges might not be enough to prevent individuals from taking excessive risks in derivatives. 

For IDFC FIRST Bank, the next challenge is to sustain growth as the lender expands its operations. Managing Director and CEO V. Vaidyanathan said the bank's next phase of expansion could be relatively easier than the journey so far, reflecting on his decision to leave ICICI Bank to build his own financial institution. 

“I am very confident that ₹3 lakh crore loan book will be ₹6 lakh crore, ₹10 lakh crore. That is going to be relatively easier,” Vaidyanathan said during a fireside chat titled Entrepreneurial Banker: The IDFC FIRST Bank Story. The bank has expanded its loan book from around ₹30,000 crore to ₹3 lakh crore, and Vaidyanathan expressed confidence in its future growth prospects. 

Governance and AI take centre stage 

Governance emerged as another key theme, with industry leaders stressing that banks must go beyond regulatory compliance to build stakeholder trust and protect their market valuations. 

During a panel discussion titled Are Banks Losing Their Governance Premium?, Shailesh Haribhakti, Chairman of Shailesh Haribhakti & Associates; Satish Marathe, Director on the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI); and Prashant Kumar, former MD and CEO of YES Bank, discussed the challenges facing lenders amid economic uncertainty, technological disruption and heightened regulatory scrutiny. 

The discussion highlighted the importance of robust governance frameworks in sustaining confidence among depositors, investors and other stakeholders, particularly as banks expand their operations and adopt new technologies. 

AI is also changing how financial institutions operate, with the technology moving beyond routine automation towards handling financial processes and customer interactions more independently. 

At a panel titled Reimagining Finance in the AI Era, Pratik Shah, Partner and National Leader for Financial Services at EY India; Pankaj Gadgil, MD and CEO of Aditya Birla Housing Finance Ltd and Head of Digital Platforms and Payments Strategy at Aditya Birla Capital Ltd; and Aman Goel, Co-founder and CEO of GreyLabs AI, discussed AI’s growing role in banking and financial services. 

The discussion focused on how AI could help banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) improve productivity, streamline processes and enhance customer service while requiring them to rethink their operating models. 

At the summit, Bank of Maharashtra Managing Director and CEO Nidhu Saxena flagged the widening gap between credit and deposit growth as a key concern, saying banks could not rely solely on deposit mobilisation to sustain lending. IndusInd Bank Managing Director and CEO Rajiv Anand said lenders needed to rethink their liability mix rather than wait for household savings patterns to change. Hitendra Dave, CEO of HSBC India, highlighted the challenge of making bank deposit returns competitive with equity-market returns. Meanwhile, B. Ramesh Babu, Managing Director and CEO of Karur Vysya Bank, said banks could look beyond the race for low-cost current and savings account (CASA) deposits. Improving underwriting and selectively taking on additional credit risk within their risk appetite, particularly in retail and micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) lending, could help lenders offset pressure on deposit costs, he added.

Maharashtra targets $1-trillion economy 

Maharashtra’s economic growth will depend on infrastructure development, investment, renewable energy and entrepreneurship, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the state’s Minister for Skill, Employment, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, said at the summit. 

As the state targets a $1-trillion economy by 2029-30, Lodha said its economic progress extended beyond Mumbai to other parts of Maharashtra. He expressed confidence that the state would make a significant contribution to India’s overall economic growth. 

Banks must provide long-term capital to Indian businesses 

Indian banks will need to strengthen their ability to provide long-term capital to domestic businesses if they are to scale up and compete globally, Shashwat Goenka, vice chairman of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, said at the summit. 

Linking the banking sector’s role to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambition of having 50 Indian companies feature on the Fortune Global 500 list within the next decade, Goenka said businesses would need financial institutions capable of supporting their growth over longer periods. He also highlighted the importance of access to capital as India expands its manufacturing, infrastructure, renewable energy and technology sectors. 

The discussions at the summit underscored the interconnected priorities shaping India’s financial services industry and broader economy, using technology to scale operations, strengthening governance, and regulatory accountability, deploying AI to improve efficiency, and ensuring access to long-term capital to support businesses and economic growth.