RBI Expands Fintech Innovation to Strengthen India’s Digital Financial Infrastructure
SDG 9: Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure | SDG 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth
Institutions: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) | Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) | Ministry of Finance
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has launched the HaRBInger 2025 Global Fintech Hackathon, inviting startups, fintech innovators and academic teams to develop solutions that enhance secure digital payments, financial inclusion, and fraud detection across India’s rapidly growing digital economy. The initiative leverages India’s well-developed public digital infrastructure and supports experimentation via the RBI’s regulatory sandbox framework.
Themes for this edition focus on AI-led financial integrity, cross-border remittances, and user protection, aiming to translate emerging technologies into practical improvements in India’s financial systems. With India ranked among the world’s largest realtime payments ecosystems, the hackathon offers a structured platform to accelerate job creation, market readiness, and responsible innovation that benefits underserved populations and enhances trust in digital finance.
By directly supporting product innovation, industry collaboration and safer digital services, this initiative advances India’s financial-sector modernisation while boosting high-skilled employment in fintech. It strengthens secure, inclusive financial infrastructure (SDG 9) and unlocks economic opportunity through new business models and scale pathways for startups (SDG 8). As digital payments expand deeper into the economy, proactive innovation governance can help ensure equitable access, reduced fraud risk and continued global competitiveness for India’s fintech leadership.
What is the RBI Regulatory Sandbox? → A controlled testing environment where fintech firms can trial innovative financial products with regulatory oversight before wider deployment.
Relevant Question for Policy Stakeholders:
How will RBI and MeitY ensure that top solutions emerging from HaRBInger 2025 are supported through post-hackathon pilots, regulatory guidance and industry partnerships to achieve national scale?
Follow the full news here:
RBI FinTech Hackathon — HaRBInger 2025 Announcement
https://fintech.rbi.org.in/FT_HaRBInger_2025