TLDR: At the 6th Global FinTech Fest (GFF) 2025 in Mumbai, Shri Ajay Kumar Choudhary, Non-Executive Chairman and Independent Director of NPCI, delivered a keynote address on ‘AI’s Promise and Peril: Building Responsible Intelligence for Inclusive Finance’. He highlighted AI’s transformative potential in financial services, with investments projected to reach nearly USD 100 billion by 2027, while also cautioning against risks like model bias and systemic dependencies. Choudhary emphasized a human-first approach, urging for robust governance, cross-border collaboration, and leveraging India’s success in inclusive innovation like UPI to ensure AI fosters stability and wider access to finance.
Mumbai, India – October 8, 2025 – Artificial intelligence (AI) has transitioned from a niche concept to a mainstream force, fundamentally reshaping the landscape of financial services, according to Shri Ajay Kumar Choudhary, Non-Executive Chairman and Independent Director of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Delivering a special keynote address at the 6th Global FinTech Fest (GFF) 2025 in Mumbai, Choudhary spoke on the critical theme, ‘AI’s Promise and Peril: Building Responsible Intelligence for Inclusive Finance’.
Choudhary underscored that AI is ‘opening doors for efficiency, inclusion, and resilience’ within the financial sector. He noted a significant surge in AI adoption, with investment in AI across banking, insurance, capital markets, and payments anticipated to reach nearly USD 100 billion by 2027. Furthermore, a remarkable 78% of financial organizations are already deploying AI in at least one function, a substantial increase from 55% in 2023. ‘The industry is no longer debating if AI will matter, it is preparing for how far and how fast it will take us. The real question is whether we harness this power carefully,’ he stated.
The address highlighted two pivotal dimensions of the AI revolution: Generative AI, capable of creating and analyzing at scale, and Agentic AI, designed to autonomously pursue complex tasks. Choudhary elaborated on their transformative potential, citing applications in fraud detection, compliance automation, trading precision, and customer engagement. Early studies suggest that global banks could realize productivity gains ranging from USD 200–340 billion annually through these advanced technologies.
However, Choudhary also issued a strong caution regarding the inherent vulnerabilities introduced by AI. He pointed to risks such as model bias, explainability gaps, concentration risks, and systemic dependencies across various infrastructure layers, including specialized chips, cloud services, data, and large foundation models. He stressed that while AI presents unprecedented opportunities, it also ‘introduces complex challenges that demand prudent governance and cross-border collaboration.’
Advocating for a ‘human-first approach’ to AI in finance, Choudhary asserted, ‘The true test of AI will be whether it strengthens stability rather than weakens it. It should be harnessed to make finance more stable, not more fragile. It must become a tool of resilience, not a trigger of instability. That is the responsibility we share.’ He emphasized that ‘responsible AI is not a slogan. It is the only way forward,’ calling for intensified domestic and international collaboration to diversify dependencies, bolster data governance, and ensure resilience in an increasingly AI-driven era.
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Choudhary also showcased India’s leadership in inclusive innovation, particularly through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which now processes over 20 billion transactions monthly. He highlighted NPCI’s initiatives, including ‘UPI Lite’ for low-bandwidth regions, ‘UPI for Her’ aimed at empowering women entrepreneurs, and ‘UPI 123Pay’ designed for feature phone users, demonstrating how technology can be leveraged for broader financial inclusion. He concluded by stating, ‘If we apply it with vision, discipline, and responsibility, it can widen access, build resilience, and make growth more inclusive. If we neglect these duties, it may magnify the very vulnerabilities we seek to avoid.’
