Reserve Bank of India to Focus on Cybersecurity in 2019

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) published its annual report on August 29, with the institution revealing its agenda for 2019 putting an emphasis on cybersecurity.

India’s central bank has numerous agendas as it seeks to enhance cybersecurity levels in the country for the upcoming fiscal year. This includes the likes of ‘theme based’ IT examinations and setting up an audit management application portal.

The bank said the IT examinations are intended to strengthen cybersecurity levels of Indian banks while the application portal would improve efficiency of the offsite monitoring mechanism.

“The Bank will proactively initiate the process of developing a cyber-security culture, endeavour to make cyber security a responsibility and ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability of information system and resources,” the report said.

As part of its agenda, the bank would also set up an online portal for non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) that would enable them to report any cybersecurity incident.

Further, the bank said that the Department of Information Technology (DIT) is working towards ongoing protection against cybercrimes and cyber warfare which, according to the central bank, is on the rise in the country.

RBI also revealed that private sector banks and foreign banks present in India have accounted for 36 percent of each those cyber frauds

“Given the increasing popularity of digital payments, data protection and cybersecurity norms were strengthened,” the report reads. 

A report by Credit Suisse said that India’s digital payment industry is currently worth US$200 billion, increasing to US$1 trillion by 2023.

RBI’s focus on cybersecurity comes at a time when a report from Research And Market said that India’s cybersecurity sector is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 19 percent between 2018 and 2023.

Investors can take note of the report which mentions numerous companies who are active in the space which include the Indian subsidiaries of Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), Symantec Software (NASDAQ:SYMC), Check Point Software (NASDAQ:CHKP), IBM (NYSE:IBM), Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT), Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) and Palo Alto (NYSE:PANW).

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Securities Disclosure: I, Bala Yogesh, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.