Gen AI to be the Hot Favorite for BFSIs in 2024

By siliconindia  |  Friday, 22 December 2023, 19:35 IST

Gen AI to be the Hot Favorite for BFSIs in 2024

A BITS Pilani Alumnus, Santhanam has been associated with Broadridge for over a decade now, prior to which he has successfully handled key positions across Wells Fargo and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Some of his key areas of expertise include Capital Markets, Wealth Management and Home Lending. In a recent conversation with Siliconindia, Santhanam Govindaraj, CI, Broadridge India gave us an insightful overview of the Indian financial services landscape so far this year, and expressed his expectations for the coming year as well. Below are the excerpts from the exclusive interview

What are your thoughts on the Indian financial services industry so far in 2023?

The financial services industry in India has been well-renowned for being an early adopter of innovative technologies. The year 2023 started with the UPI platform gaining widespread acceptance, which enabled the entire country to make payments digitally. We have made some significant impact since then with the finance industry making key investments in technology across customer engagement, transaction crossing and risk management. Fintech companies have played a key role in this, wherein they have expanded across payments, lending and wealth management. Regulatory bodies such as the RBI have enabled this change by adopting policies that make sure that these changes happen without impacting the stability of the system. While there is a lot of visibility on the retail end, India has made tremendous progress on the institutional front as well. I am proud to say that our country was among the first to adopt the  T+1 settlement, which many of the countries are still yet to do. To summarize, the  Indian financial services sector continues to transform, push the boundaries and set an example for others to follow.

What were some of the major concerns for financial service organizations while entering 2023, and how is the scenario now?

The primary concern for us was cybersecurity. With the increased frequency of sophisticated cyber threats targeting access to financial data, cybersecurity was the most discussed topic in all boardroom meetings of financial companies in 2023. So far, we have done considerably well in creating perimeter security measures to prevent being compromised, but is still a constant threat because as technologies evolve, so do the threats. Thus, there is an immediate need for BFSI companies to adopt to changing tech advancements. The second major concern for our industry was regulatory uncertainties and compliance challenges emerging with the evolution of Gen AI. The third concern was climate change, which highlighted the need for sustainable finance and ESG consideration within our industry.

According to you, what were the two most significant developments for the BFSI industry in 2023?

We started the year with the emergence of ChatGPT as the most popular trend across various industries, and the finance sector was no different. This year, we have witnessed very quick adoption of Gen AI to see how we can enable our customers across our services spectrum using Gen AI-trained models. Secondly, SEBI chief announced the same-day settlements from next year March, followed in a year by real-time settlements, which is a transformational move. So according to me, these are the two most significant developments that the Indian BFSI community has witnessed in 2023.

Going forward, how do you expect modern day technologies to shape-up the BFSI landscape in 2024?

The future looks exciting for the financial services industry, and the top of our mind is no doubt Gen AI. The possibilities that it brings to how we can enable our customers through personalization and prediction is something very anticipated across the industry. Digital User Experience is one aspect that I expect will transform the way financial services are both offered and consumed in the coming days. Also, cloud, microservices and component architecture will become the main mainstream, which will give an opportunity for organizations to provide best-in-class solutions for specific problems.

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