Smt. Sitharaman said that such a platform could engage foreign regulators early and help firms navigate licensing and cybersecurity regimes
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, 11 September, 2026: Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, in her valedictory address today at the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2026, highlighted the “merit in considering a federated industry platform that brings together the broader Indian technology ecosystem to give the sector a credible collective voice internationally.” GFF 2026 is being held September 8–11 at Jio World Centre, Mumbai.
Smt. Sitharaman said that such a platform could engage foreign regulators early and help firms navigate licensing and cybersecurity regimes. "AI, fintech and digital platforms are, by their very nature, borderless," she said, adding that a young startup cannot negotiate every national regulatory system alone.
She also flagged AI-related safety risks, citing that frontier labs are "racing straight to self-improving super intelligence." “It could be a country being attacked by one small group of people using an agentic AI, or it could be a large language model which has done something exotic, and whose communication probably doesn't claim some of the things that it is possibly capable of doing,” the Union Minister added.
The sector must build systems that are "fast yet accountable, autonomous yet reversible, and innovative without diluting consumer trust," she remarked.
She highlighted Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) Limited's tokenised bond pilot under SEBI's sandbox, where the bond and digital rupee settled simultaneously via RBI's CBDC.
The Union Finance Minister released the flagship report, ‘Balance: Thriving in the Age of AI,’ presented by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the thought leadership partner of GFF 2026. Against the backdrop of an accelerating AI supercycle, the report calls on financial institutions to balance three priorities: Growth and Innovation, Safety, and Ethos. It outlines a blueprint for AI-native financial institutions and broader financial inclusion, with the potential to reduce cost-to-serve by 30–40% and make over 400 million additional customers economically viable to serve. The report also emphasizes stronger AI governance and cyber resilience, alongside a Human + AI workforce supported by reskilling, as well as the need for disciplined measurement of returns on AI investments.
