Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan appointed first chairperson of RBI's Innovation Hub

The Reserve Bank of India has appointed Senapathy (Kris) Gopalakrishnan, co-founder and former CEO & MD of Infosys, as the first chairperson of the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH).

Gopalakrishnan is currently the Chief Mentor of Start-up Village, an incubation hub for start-ups. The aim of RBIH is to promote innovation across the financial sector by leveraging on technology and creating an environment which would facilitate and foster innovation, RBI said in a statement.

The RBI, in its Monetary Policy statement on Development and Regulatory Policies dated August 6, 2020, had announced that it will set up RBIH to promote innovation across the financial sector.

RBIH would be guided and managed by a Governing Council (GC) led by a chairperson. The chief executive officer is yet to be appointed. The other members of the GC are: Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Institute Professor, IIT, Madras, Prof. H Krishnamurthy, Principal Research Scientist, IISc, Bengaluru, Gopal Srinivasan, CMD, TVS Capital Funds, A P Hota, former CEO, National Payments Corporation of India, Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, former CMD, Syndicate Bank, T Rabi Sankar, Executive Director, RBI (ex-officio), Deepak Kumar, CGM, Department of Information Technology, RBI (ex-officio), K Nikhila, Director, Institute for Development & Research in Banking Technology, Hyderabad (ex-officio).

The RBIH shall create an eco-system that would focus on promoting access to financial services and products. This will also promote financial inclusion, RBI said.

"The Hub will collaborate with financial sector institutions, technology industry and academic institutions and coordinate efforts for exchange of ideas and development of prototypes related to financial innovations. It would develop internal infrastructure to promote fintech research and facilitate engagement with innovators and start-ups," RBI statement added.