Srinagar, September 19 (KNS): The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Jammu, on Saturday organised a one-day conference on financial sector initiatives and cyber security awareness at Hotel Taj Dal View, Srinagar, bringing together senior officials from the J&K administration, banking sector, police and financial institutions.

Chief Secretary, Government of J&K, Atal Dulloo, was the chief guest, while RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain attended as the special guest. RBI Regional Director, Jammu, Prabhakar Jha, was also present.

The conference was attended by Principal Secretary, Home Department, Chandraker Bharti; ADGP, CID, M K Sinha; Commissioner/Secretaries and Administrative Secretaries of Industries and Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Planning, Development and Monitoring, Information, Revenue, and Labour and Employment departments.

J&K Bank MD and CEO Amitava Chatterjee, controlling and zonal heads of banks operating in the Union Territory, and senior officers from the UT administration, J&K Police, RBI Central Office, Mumbai, Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, NABARD, NPCI and RXIL also participated.

In his keynote address, Dulloo said the UT administration had prioritised key sectors including tourism, agriculture and allied activities, hydropower and MSMEs, and stressed the need to leverage their inherent strengths and channelise credit towards these sectors.

He called for expansion of agriculture term lending, upgradation of existing self-help groups into meaningful enterprises and promotion of handicrafts and niche products in J&K.

Dulloo said RBI's Unified Lending Interface (ULI) could accelerate credit delivery and accomplish for lending what UPI had achieved for retail payments.

He said the Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) could help address liquidity issues faced by MSMEs and enable their further growth.

The Chief Secretary also said the Central Bank Digital Currency (Digital Rupee) and its programmability feature could create possibilities for targeted state subsidies under welfare schemes.

Emphasising the continued focus of the Centre and UT administration on reducing cyber frauds, Dulloo urged all stakeholders to work collectively.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp ChannelHe also called upon participants to prepare actionable road maps based on the deliberations of the conference for the progress of the UT.

In his special address, RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain highlighted the role of the central bank as a full-service institution, saying its responsibilities extend beyond monetary policy, regulation and supervision to developmental areas such as payment and settlement systems, financial inclusion and development of financial markets.

Jain said ULI, an RBI initiative, would help provide seamless and frictionless credit to diverse sectors of the economy and contribute to overall economic well-being.

He said technology had brought efficiency to the financial sector but also created risks of cyber fraud, adding that the RBI was consistently engaging with government authorities to address such challenges.

He highlighted technology-driven measures including MuleHunter.ai for strengthening fraud detection, card tokenisation, the introduction of the .bank.in domain, unified calling numbers and the compensation framework for unauthorised electronic banking transactions.

Jain said these measures would contribute towards creating a financial ecosystem that protects customers and helps retain their trust in the banking sector.

He also stressed the need to scale up public awareness about such initiatives and thanked the UT government for its active involvement in the conference.

The conference featured thematic sessions on Unified Lending Interface (ULI): Present Status and Challenges, including its rollout in J&K; Digital Rupee (e?) – CBDC; MuleHunter.ai and its implementation; and the supervisory approach to Digital Lending Apps.

Other sessions covered card tokenisation, the .bank.in domain and unified calling numbers; the compensation framework for small-value fraudulent Electronic Banking Transactions (EBTs); Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), State Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (S4C) and the modus operandi of cybercrime in J&K; fraud prevention measures for UPI payments; and Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) and challenges in J&K.(KNS)