Mumbai

Agenticartificial intelligence (AI) can help banks deliver personalised financial services to thou-sands of customers but financial institutions will need clear frameworks around AI agents as the technology moves from recommendations to executing decisions, State Bank of India Chairman CS Setty said on Thursday.

Speaking at the Global Fintech Fest 2026, Setty said banks were entering the next phase of AI adoption, with the deployment of AI agents across financial services offering a major opportunity.

“Artificial intelligence should always augment human resources,” Setty said. He said the initial fixed costs of deploying agentic AI could be high but lower incremental costs as adoption expands could create economic efficiencies for banks.

Setty said building foundational AI models was necessary for creating strategic capabilities in arti-ficial intelligence. Agentic AI could enable banks to provide more personalised services at scale, he added.

However, banks are introducing the technology in a market that is diverse and complex, creating challenges for financial institutions, he said.

While banks have been using machine learning (ML) models for several years, the next major op-portunity lies in deploying AI agents across financial services, Setty said.

SBI has been among the early adopters of artificial intelligence and machine learning in banking and already uses conventional AI-based approaches for credit assessment and cash flow-based lending, he said.

Setty also highlighted the role of India's digital infrastructure in enabling technology adoption. “In-dia has successfully converted digital infrastructure into trust and then converted that trust into scale,” he said.

As agentic AI becomes more embedded in banking, institutions will need clear frameworks gov-erning the identity and authentication of AI agents, customer consent and transaction limits, accord-ing to him.

He said accountability would become increasingly important as AI systems move beyond provid-ing recommendations and begin executing decisions.

Mumbai

TheNational Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is developing artificial intelligence (AI) models around on-demand Kisan Credit loans as India's rural finance ecosystem increasingly embraces digital lending, Chairman Shaji Krishnan V said on Thursday.

Speaking on the second day of the Global Fintech Fest 2026 here, Krishnan said digitalisation is gaining traction across agriculture and allied sectors, including fisheries and dairy, creating new opportunities to improve credit delivery and financial inclusion in rural India.

He said rural financial institutions are increasingly participating in digital lending processes to en-sure farmers and rural households receive credit in a timely manner.

According to Krishnan, the government's efforts in creating foundational digital infrastructure have laid the groundwork for bridging the rural urban divide.

He noted that nearly 45 per cent of India's population lives in rural areas, making inclusive growth critical for the country's development. "When India has to grow very fast, every section of society needs to grow," he said and added that the next step is to better link identity frameworks such as Aadhaar with economic activity.