Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has called upon the Reserve Bank of India to significantly advance its central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiatives and enhance digital rupee capabilities, while simultaneously addressing the growing threats posed by cybersecurity and rapidly evolving artificial intelligence.
Key Points
- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman urged the RBI to accelerate the development and capabilities of India's digital rupee (CBDC) pilots.
- Sitharaman highlighted the success of India's first tokenised corporate bond pilot, demonstrating CBDC's role in instantaneous asset and money movement.
- She stressed the critical importance of cybersecurity, warning about the rapid advancement of autonomous AI systems and their potential for sophisticated cyber attacks.
- The Finance Minister proposed establishing a federated industry platform to provide India's technology ecosystem with a unified international voice and navigate cross-border regulations.
- Sitharaman cautioned that while tokenisation offers efficiency, increased transaction speed also amplifies the risk of errors, fraud, and market shocks.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday urged the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to further advance its central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiatives and sharpen its capabilities with the digital rupee, amid rapid developments in tokenisation, agentic AI and quantum computing.
The finance minister also flagged cybersecurity, urging the financial services ecosystem to pay sufficient attention to the issue and warned that the capabilities of autonomous systems powered by artificial intelligence are growing faster.
"I urge the RBI to further advance and also develop what it has initiated through both the wholesale and retail CBDC pilots. Sensing the momentum in this fall and across global markets, the RBI needs to continue to sharpen its capabilities with the digital rupee," Sitharaman said while addressing the Global Fintech Fest 2026.
Advancing India's Digital Rupee
Sitharaman said the successful pilot of India's first tokenised corporate bond demonstrated the importance of CBDC in enabling simultaneous movement of the asset and money legs of a transaction.
"Every tokenization architecture being tested across the world eventually returns to the foundational question: What is the money leg made of?" the finance minister said.
The remarks came after REC completed India's first tokenised corporate bond pilot under the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (SEBI) regulatory sandbox. According to the finance minister, the bond and digital rupee moved at the exact same instant, with the transaction closing on the day payment was made.
"The monetary settlement was possible due to the presence of CBDC. It also shows the synergy between the two regulators RBI and SEBI," Sitharaman said.
Addressing Cybersecurity And AI Risks
The finance minister said tokenisation could eliminate unnecessary intermediaries and make asset transfers almost instantaneous, but cautioned that greater transaction speed also means errors, fraud and market shocks could spread at the same pace.
She also highlighted the need to balance efficiency from emerging technologies with systemic-risk safeguards, particularly as agentic AI and quantum computing gain traction.
She warned that autonomous cyber capabilities powered by artificial intelligence may be advancing faster than the mechanisms designed to control them, underscoring the need for stronger safeguards as AI adoption accelerates.
"A leading lab, I'm not naming here, now judges autonomous cyber capability to be moving faster than its existing controlling mechanisms," the minister said, adding that "the controls that they put in place are not catching up."
She also cautioned that "AI acts as a double-edged sword. It helps spot fraudsters and fraud faster, but it also allows attackers to automate larger, more sophisticated cyber attacks."
Fostering A Unified Tech Ecosystem
The finance minister proposed setting up a federated industry platform bringing together the broader Indian technology ecosystem to give the sector a credible collective voice internationally and help companies navigate cross-border regulatory barriers.
"There may therefore be merit in considering a federated industry platform that brings together the broader Indian technology ecosystem, not to speak over individual communities, but to give the sector a credible collective voice internationally," the finance minister said.
Such a platform could engage foreign governments and regulators, identify areas for interoperable standards, share best practices on data and cybersecurity, help companies understand licensing environments and represent Indian industry in framing international rules for emerging technologies, she added.
