banking. And I'm Charmi Patel, part of City Commercial Bank. And it is our distinguished honor to host this gathering for the next 2 days of what promises to be an incredibly insightful journey of thought leadership, strategic dialogues, and impactful collaborations. We meet at a pivotal moment for the global economy, one marked by rapid technological changes, geopolitical uncertainty, and a fundamental rewriting of our financial systems. This is not cyclical, but a structural shift. One that would reward those who move early and lead with conviction. And India is rising to this moment with confidence. It is exactly at times like these that platforms such as our flagship conference, which brings together senior government leaders, CEOs, and industry visionaries, who not only help us understand these structural shifts, but actively shape them, create ideas, form partnerships that define India's next phase of growth while reestablishing City's enduring commitment to this country. Before we begin, a quick note on logistics. On your tables, you will find QR code linking to Slido for Q&A. Please feel free to submit your questions anonymously throughout the sessions. Also, a quick reminder to please keep your phones on silent. And now, to set the ball rolling, please join me in welcoming Amol Gupte, City's Asia South Cluster and Banking Head, whose leadership has been instrumental in driving City's growth across the region, strengthening client franchise, and advancing its strategic and digital transformation journey. Over to you, Amol.
Good morning, and welcome again to City's India Conference. We are honored to gather such a distinguished group here in Mumbai, a city that embodies the heartbeat and the vibrant spirit of India's economic prowess. For those who have traveled across city and across the world, we're grateful for you to be here in person, and we hope you get value from this engagement. I would like to extend a special welcome to Mr. C.S. Setty, Chairman, State Bank of India, and other distinguished guests, clients, and speakers. Later today and tomorrow, we will be joined by Ambassador Sergio Gor, US Ambassador to the Republic of India, and Special Presidential Envoy to South and Central Asia. Honorable Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr. Piyush Goyal, and Jane Fraser, Citi Chair and CEO. India is a powerhouse of innovation and growth, a key market for Citi where the network of Citi truly comes alive. India, as you well know, is a dynamic economy characterized by demographic dividend, digital revolution, infrastructure transformation, and its thoughtful policy reform, which drives robust growth. That said, we are in turbulent times with the effects of the Middle East crisis and AI revolution that impact not just India in a unique way, but many other countries. But, we're certainly feeling it here. However, at Citi, we are firm believers in the long-term future of India when you zoom out from the present. In the past few years, India has done an exceptional job on consolidating its fiscal balance sheet post COVID. Banks are in excellent financial health. You've seen corporate earnings, which have been very strong, and the India macro story and foundation is very, very strong. One could argue that India is far more resilient today to bear the shock than it would be, say, 10 years back or even 5 years back. India has built one of the most advanced digital public infrastructure ecosystems, combining identity, payments, and data layers at scale. That foundation and scale drives momentum. It drives digital and AI readiness. It creates structural and meaningful shifts that give way to a multi-decade consumer growth story. As new global geopolitical dynamics emerge, India remains a bright spot in the world with its multifaceted investment opportunities. There aren't many other large countries of this size and scale that can grow well north of 6% despite the current headwinds we're seeing in the world. For over a century, Citi has proudly stood at the heart of economic India's economic journey. This long-standing commitment underscores our belief in India's enduring potential and its critical role on the global stage. We have consistently supported clients as they grew over here, mirroring the nation's own incredible growth to become one of the world's leading and largest economies. What truly sets Citi apart is its unparalleled reach of our global network. With a strategic on-the-ground presence in over 90 countries, the depth of our platform in India, connected to the breadth of our network across the world, enables us to provide cutting-edge solutions for risk management, working capital optimization, and capital raising. We are the go-to bank for foreign exchange and hedging solutions, and our services business is the operational lifeblood for every large corporation in the world as we move over $6 trillion globally daily. As investment, capital, and trade flows between India and the rest of the world accelerate, India is uniquely positioned to facilitate the We Citi is uniquely positioned to facilitate the role of India on this global map. Our investment bank helps bridge those strategic connections and helps clients achieve their global ambitions. With that backdrop, today Citi manages about 8% of India's trade flows, 4% of India's electronic payment flows, 35% of FPI assets under custody are managed by Citi, and we are a top investment bank. Our commitment to India is further demonstrated by the growth of our global capability centers across India. We have 35,000 colleagues managing critical functions and driving innovation in areas like digital assets, blockchain, GenAI, and just yesterday I learned that the global capability center in India has more than half a dozen patents 25 years in India next year. We are committed and excited to deepen these pivotal relationships. Addressing today's challenges effectively demands collaboration and a shared vision, which brings us to this significant event. Over the next 2 days, we will bridge opportunities through discussions and connections. Together, this conference and our distinguished speakers will explore the vast opportunities that India presents ahead and how we can bridge the strategy with challenges of today's evolving global landscape. We are confident these discussions will be insightful, thought-provoking, and ultimately make the connection to opportunities in an increasingly complex environment. Thank you all for being here, and I hope you enjoy the two days. Thank you.
Thank you, Amol, for those inspirational opening remarks and for setting the tone so powerfully for the discussions ahead. I would now like to invite on stage our keynote speaker for the day, Mr. C.S. Setty, chairman of the State Bank of India, a distinguished leader and a career SBI veteran with over three decades of leadership across key banking verticals, whose vision has been instrumental in shaping the evolution of modern banking in India. As he sheds light on the role of banking in driving India's growth story for the 2047 vision, we would request you all to kindly keep sharing your questions through Slido, which would be taken up by Mr. Setty at the end of his session. And moderating that Q&A, we will have Anuradha Chaudhary, head of financial institutions business at Citi India. Over to you, Mr. Setty.
Good morning, everyone. You are able to hear me? Thank you. I'm inspired by Amol. I thought I'll stay say a few words before I go to my written speech. First of all, thanks, Citi, for giving me this opportunity. We have very strong relationship with Citi across the globe. We operate out of 29 different countries, and everywhere we operate, Citi is a significant partner to us in terms of a range of banking services which we provide to our customers. But before we speak about the banking role in Viksit Bharat, a couple of things I wanted to share with you. I think in my introduction about me, she mentioned about three decades and moving towards four decades actually. It is 37 years in SBI. It's very interesting to see this 37 years journey that where we started sometime in 1988, I joined the bank in December 1988, quite some time ago. And the journey of this 37 years also tremendous journey for the banking industry in the country. A few anecdotes which I would like to share. In 1988, when we joined SBI, Indian banking was dominated completely by the public sector banks. Virtually no private sector banks in the country. And the Government of India through the RBI wanted to implement computerization. They didn't call it computerization, they called it mechanization. They wanted to bring machines in banking industry. And every employee union association pushed back that we don't want machines. And very typical Indian jugad, what the government has done is that they have given a computer increment. Anybody who uses computer will get an increment. So all of us, of course, got the increment and the story of computerization of India and banking in particular and payments in general is an amazing story, right? Where you have started in 1988 and where we are today. Similarly, sometime later, 4 or 5 years later, I was a branch manager in one of the small branches. I remember having, you know, in India, the districts are headed by collectors. They are the district administrator. In one of the days, a collector walked into my office and said that I want 20,000 rupees clean overdraft. He didn't have, I need to pay a fee for my son's education. And my account is elsewhere. So I need some money here. I told him, 'Sir, there is no clean overdraft facility. I can't give any clean loan. Unless you have a deposit with me, you won't get a loan.' And then 5 years later, just before this liberalization began in India, we were taking 400% cash collateral to open a letter of credit to import anything into India. So, this is where we all started maybe 30, 35 years ago. Today, everyone chasing a retail customer to give a loan. Everyone chasing a business to give a seamless SME loan. Everyone is changing every particular segment, whether it is microfinance, whether it is SME, whether it is corporate banking. And the banking has definitely played an important role the way India has progressed over the last three to four decades of my journey in SBI. I thought I'll set the context from there and let us see what exactly the Viksit Bharat and the banking role is going to play.
So, first of all, again, very good morning to all of you. And as I said, it's a privilege and pleasure to be here today at the Citi India conference. I didn't expect to be such a massive gathering, but I think I must compliment Citi to organize such a wonderful event. And as Amol mentioned, I think it's a time when the whole global economy is navigating geopolitical uncertainties, shifting supply chains, technological disruption, and changing patterns of capital flows. I thought I've seen everything, but every year brings new dimensions of challenges. But India stands out as a source of stability, resilience, and opportunity. Don't look at Sensex. Look at India's long-term story. I think that is what I'm going to talk about now, that Vision India 2047. You're all familiar with what we talk about 2047, essentially the 100 years of independent India. And where India aspires to become Viksit Bharat, a developed country, and provide at least improved per capita income to $10,000, and be called a developed country. So, India's story is no longer merely about catching up. As I said, the context, it is actually emerging as one of the defining growth stories of the 21st century. Increasingly, it is helping shape the global future. Over the last two decades, living standards have more than tripled with GDP per capita increasing to 2,700. It's still low, but it increased from $800 in 2006. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. I think it's very, very significant. When I was a child in school, we used to get in a government school a wheat from US under the scheme called PL 480. We all used to wait for that wheat because that used to give the midday meal to many of the students, millions of students those days. Today, I'm very proud to say that India is surplus in food grain production. And India has established itself as the fastest growing major economies in the world. But the most remarkable aspect of India's rise is not simply the pace of growth. It is the ability to deliver transformation at an unprecedented scale. And throughout this journey, the banking sector has been far more than a provider of financial services. It has been a critical partner in nation-building. The most distinctive feature of India's developmental journey has been the creation of a world-leading digital public infrastructure. I think you're all familiar with the DPI JAM Trinity. I think they have been spoken quite a lot. But the digital promise, what India has developed, particularly the payment spaces, is amazing. And you must have read extensively that today UPI handles 200 billion transactions every year. And very proud to say that SBI handles 30% of that volume. If you see the volume of transactions and the capacity of what the system has developed, SBI alone handles almost 250 million transactions every day on UPI, with a technical decline as low as 0.01%. So you need to build in India if you are operating, you have to build for scale and build scale which actually creates the flywheel impact going forward. So the JAM Trinity definitely have helped in terms of creating foundation for one of the most ambitious digital transformations in modern history. Banks have played a central role in translating this digital infrastructure to economic opportunity. Social security coverage expanded dramatically from 19% of the population in 2015 to over 64% in 2025. The bedrock of this is what is called direct benefit transfer, which has not only prevented leakage, it has brought many people into the fold of the benefits what the government has been giving to them. And again, the digital public infrastructure played a very important role to ensure that the DBT is delivered with efficiency and low cost. One of the most other significant achievements in the Indian banking system has been in the democratization of access to finance. This DPI and the whole gamut of data availability in India has ensured that access to finance, the story which I mentioned is no more relevant, you know, when not only the collector, everyone in India has access to finance today. The microfinance sector offers a compelling example. Today, 95% of microfinance borrowers are women. And nearly 80% belong to rural areas. Over the last decade, the number of active borrowers has increased from 33 million to nearly 63 million. During the same period, the sector's loan portfolio expanded almost sevenfold, reaching approximately 2.5 trillion rupees. So these numbers represent much more than credit growth. They represent women starting businesses, families improving housing conditions, children gaining access to better education, and households becoming more resilient. Few financial inclusion initiatives in the world have combined financial access, social empowerment, and women-led development at this scale. Banks also have played a transformative role in supporting entrepreneurship. Today, large-scale government-supported, non-government-supported, individually driven by the banks are immense. We have adopted digitalization at scale to ensure that SME financing becomes seamless in the country. Consolidated MSE MSME credit outstanding is around 67 trillion rupees, growing at a 5-year CAGR of 17%. The other pillar of India's transformation has been the infrastructure and the productive capacity creation. Over the last decade, India has undertaken one of the world's largest infrastructure expansion programs. National highways have expanded from about 91,000 km in 2014 to over 146,000 km today. Similarly, India's metro rail network, port capacity, Indian railways network, and airport connectivity have grown manifold. Behind every highway, airport, logistics corridor, metro rail system, and renewable energy project lies a financing story. Indian banks have been central participants in that story. Infrastructure lending by scheduled commercial banks increased approximately from 9.6 trillion rupees in 2016 to nearly 14 trillion rupees in 2026. Agriculture too has benefited from expanding institutional finance. Agricultural credit disbursement crossed 26 trillion rupees in FY26. Since inception, over 860 million applications have been processed under the Prime Minister's crop insurance program. But when we talk about the next frontier, Vision India 2047, the next phase of India's development journey must focus on some key priorities. First, rural prosperity. Nearly 60% of India's population continues to reside in rural areas. Future growth must strengthen agribusiness productivity, improve market access, expand access to finance, and build climate resilience. Second, urban transformation. India's urban population is expected to approach 800 million by 2050. Building sustainable and globally competitive cities will require significant investments in transport, housing, water, waste management, and urban infrastructure. Third, investing in people. India's median age is around 28 years. By 2050, the country's working age population is expected to exceed 1.1 billion people. Investments in education, health care, skilling, and female workforce participation will determine whether India fully realizes its demographic dividend. Fourth, globally competitive manufacturing. India seeks to increase manufacturing's share of GDP from around 17% currently to at least 25%. Deepen integration with global value chains, and emerge as a leader in advanced manufacturing sectors. The vision is ambitious, but India is not attempting it from a standing start. The country enters this next phase with strong macroeconomic fundamentals, world-class digital infrastructure, expanding physical infrastructure, and a resilient banking system. Having said that, if banking helped build the foundations of modern India, it must now help build the foundations of Viksit Bharat. The scale of financing required over the coming decades will be unprecedented. Based on internal assessments, India may require incremental investments of nearly 200 trillion rupees by 2030, and another 400 to 450 trillion rupees by FY35 across infrastructure, manufacturing, energy transition, urban development, MSMEs, and innovation. For banks to support India's aspiration, they themselves must evolve. The future banking model must be built on some key pillars: ensuring access to banking services across every segment of society and the economy, building institutional expertise, financial awareness, and deeper understanding of evolving customer needs, leveraging technology, data, and artificial intelligence to create superior customer experiences and new business models, integrating environmental, social, and governance considerations into financing decisions and operations, maintaining the highest standards of governance, consumer protection, and risk management. Green finance will become another defining opportunity. As per NITI Aayog estimates, India's energy transition will require a cumulative investment of approximately 22 trillion dollars by 2070 to achieve its economy-wide net zero target. Programs such as PM Suryagar, a very successful program where rooftop solar was installed, which has already covered nearly 4 million households and created almost 12 gigawatt capacity rooftop solar capacity, demonstrating both the scale of ambition and the financing opportunity ahead. In fact, renewable energy now meets over 50% of India's electricity demand, a milestone which has been achieved 5 years ahead of 2030 target under the Paris Agreement. The global economic order is being rewritten in real time. Supply chains are shifting, manufacturing is being reconfigured, technology is redefining productivity, new growth centers are emerging. India enters this period from a position of strength. A young population, a rapidly expanding economy, a world-class digital public infrastructure, modernizing physical infrastructure, growing manufacturing capabilities, and a resilient financial system. So, the journey to Vision India 2047 will undoubtedly be challenging, but it is also one of the most compelling growth stories of our time. India has already demonstrated how inclusion can be achieved at scale. The next chapter is to demonstrate how inclusion can be transformed into prosperity at scale. The banking sector will be at the heart of the transformation, not merely as providers of credit, but as mobilizers of savings, enablers of entrepreneurship, allocators of capital, and partners in nation building. The story of India's rise and the story of Indian banking have been deeply intertwined. And as India moves towards 2047, they will continue to be written together. Thank you, and Jai Hind. And I'll take a few questions.
Yeah, sure. Thank you, Mr. Shetty. That was for sharing your personal story, as well as the gamut of pillars, in a way, that you highlighted for India's vision 2047. Several questions coming in as you were talking. So, I'm going to read out just a few that are related to a few things that you mentioned. One common theme seems to be around the digital public infrastructure that has been built in India. And the questions are around how do you see the relationship between traditional banks, fintechs, and emerging technologies? You can't have a discussion today without AI. So, how do you see fintechs, emerging technologies, and banking coming together towards the vision?
So, one of the things for right at the outset I would like to mention on the AI story. I think everybody talked about India missing the AI story. There are no AI companies to invest. So, the investor conference cannot not talk about AI adoption in India. But I think I'm a great believer that India would provide the largest use cases and the largest adoption of AI and is going to be the biggest beneficiary in the world. And the microcosm of that is of course the financial services sector. And while very interesting to see that more than the financial sector today, the great amount of AI. When we are talking about AI, obviously we're not talking about merely conventional AML models. We're talking about GenAI and AI. Large scale adoption as we speak is happening in the health care sector and in the manufacturing sector. So, which means that they're all aimed at increasing the productivity. And I'm sure that financial sector including SBI, we were early adopters of conventional AI. We launched a product called pre-approved personal loan which was a big hit in terms of it's completely driven by the AML model. We were also one of the first banks to adopt responsible AI even before the RBI came with free AI guidelines. And responsible AI and ethical AI would be a cornerstone of financial services in India. But I personally believe that the AI adoption and the way the technology is adopted in India in the past will be primarily used to achieve the efficiency of scale. Just to give an example, if we have 530 million customers, we have on one extreme 170 million customers who are financial inclusion customers who have started their journey with a zero balance in their accounts and 99% of them are savers today. And the other extreme you have high net worth individuals, ultra high net worth individuals. So, how do you design your products using the AI in terms of creating that hyper personalization models is something what is central to the whole technology and the AI adoption in the banking sector.
Thank you. Thank you, sir. And on a related note, you know, we spoke a little bit about the high net worth and at the same time inclusion being a core part of the growth story. So, again, some questions coming around on that topic to say how the growth is being led today by public spending and not by private spending. Jobs are not increasing. AI will improve productivity but will diminish job openings, demographic dividend may become a burden. Any thoughts around that?
So, a lot of capital investment across the globe have led to a great amount of automation. If you see much of the capital investments, not only India, India is not unique. I think in other countries also, even the developing countries, it is seen that much of the manufacturing is automated. The amount of capital invested and the jobs created always is a disconnect across the globe. But India has uniquely a very strong services sector. And services sector, of course, initially will be impacted by the AI, but I believe that I was just giving an example. A lot of people said that in the tech IT jobs, for instance, the coding moving to AI, a lot of people will lose jobs. But in IT sector, 99% of the workforce are engineers. And these are the people who can be re-skilled at a short span of time. And I think we need large number of skilled manpower to deploy the AI itself. I think this is something what we are really facing in the market now that, while AI capital investments everybody is ready for, the availability of the manpower to deploy these AI tools is actually becoming a challenge. So, how do you re-skill and reorient your people? And time and again India proved that they are capable of re-pivoting. We pivoted from a simple BPO to global capability centers today, world-class. And I've not seen anyone shying away from global capability centers setting up here in India. So, I think the productivity gains would ensure that there is investment in areas which probably will create more jobs. Thank you.
Um and on a related subject, I think with every globally what we're seeing around cryptocurrencies, where do you see that with the financial ecosystem as we know it?
So, currently, I think both from a regulatory point of view as well as the government point of view, India is not focusing on the crypto. But we are seriously focusing on the central bank digital currency, both in the retail segment as well as the wholesale segment. While CBDC definitely requires some kind of repurposing in the sense that in a very matured payment ecosystem, CBDC positioning as a payment mechanism is not going to work. So, we are looking at, for example, a programmable CBDC. And for most of the direct benefit transfer where a specific purpose is intended, CBDC can be effectively deployed. So, I think the focus seems to be more on the central bank digital currency at this moment than looking at other digital forms of currency.
Yeah. Thank you. Sir, another theme that's coming out of the questions is more related to policy and ecosystem. And one interesting question here which says, 'Sir, if you had the privilege to become a member of the Ministry of Finance, what are the three key policy measures you would want to enact?'
So, in some way, without being part of the ministry anyway, we keep engaging ourselves with the policy making, at least advisories. So, broadly, I think if you've seen over the years, Indian government has been extremely positive towards development of the financial ecosystem. While they have general obligations in terms of maintaining and catering to satisfying all segments of the population, but central to this overall approach has been efficient fiscal management and a very proactive approach. I just would like to share an example. For instance, when this visitation conflict came up, the first and foremost thing what we have suggested to the government that while it may not be as intense as COVID, but it's equally diversified in terms of its impact on the economy. And we said that the most vulnerable segment could be small and medium enterprises, businesses. So as a very proactive measure they came with the ECLGS 5.0. You're all familiar with this emergency credit line. And as we see, I think a lot of businesses which are having some disruption in their businesses, they're able to access this liquidity. So broadly, I think government is more focused on ensuring the stability of the economy. And they have strengthened over the years the banking system. Today the public sector banking system is so robust. We are able to support the credit growth which is very significant now.
