The Indian Banking Sector has notched up significant successes ever since the days of nationalization. The Reserve Bank of India, the country’s Central Bank, is constantly innovating in its endeavor to upgrade the country’s Payment System, and Information Technology is playing a critical role in it. The Banking Industry too has realized the essentiality of ‘technologising’, and is adopting Information Technology in a big way in all its strategic/functional/operational processes and applications. 

The Reserve Bank of India constituted a committee on “Technology Upgradation in the Payments System” in the year 1994 under the Chairmanship of Shri W.S.Saraf, the then Executive Director of RBI. In its report submitted in December 1994, the committee emphasized that an apex level Institute be set up to undertake development and research in the area of Information Technology applied to the financial sector, with specific focus on banking. 

The Central Board of Directors of RBI, vide their meeting held on October 19, 1995 at Thiruvananthapuram, approved the establishment of the Institute with a brief to spearhead technology absorption in the banking and financial sector of the country. The Institute, in its short span of existence, has crossed many a milestone and contributed in a big way to the growth and development of the Banking and Financial Sector in India. 

The multifarious facets in which the Institute has been actively progressing include the upgradation of INdian FInancial NETwork (INFINET), expanding the range of applications on the Network for the User Group, Research & Development in the area of Banking Technology, Consultancy & Advisory services on Information Management, Knowledge & Technology Management, and Education & Training to facilitate Technology Absorption in the Sector.