Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah has unveiled a major technology and institutional push to modernise India’s Urban Cooperative Banking sector, launching the Security Operations Centre and ‘Bank in a Box’ services under the National Urban Cooperative Finance and Development Corporation (NUCFDC).
The initiatives were launched at the ‘Sahkar Nav-Kranti’ programme at the BSE International Convention Centre in Mumbai, where Shah said the long-awaited Umbrella Organisation for Urban Cooperative Banks has now become a reality with RBI recognition, adequate capital and a new office.
The ‘Bank in a Box’ platform will provide UCBs with core banking, digital payments, cloud services, regulatory compliance and other modern banking facilities through a single integrated platform. Shah said the model will enable even small, single-branch UCBs to offer modern banking services without incurring high technology costs.
The Security Operations Centre will provide round-the-clock cyber monitoring and security support. Under an MoU between NUCFDC and the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU), cybersecurity, digital forensics, employee training and research capabilities will also be made available to UCBs at an affordable cost.
Shah urged all 1,400 UCBs to join the Umbrella Organisation and its Security Operations Centre. He said the membership fee should be linked to the number of branches so that small and single-branch banks can also participate. At present, around 650 UCBs have joined the Umbrella Organisation, representing nearly half of the sector. He called for 100% membership within the next one year.
Shah also announced that the NUCFDC headquarters will be shifted from Delhi to Maharashtra, which has the country’s highest number of UCBs at 449. He said Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa and Karnataka together account for a major share of the sector.
Explaining the economic rationale behind the Umbrella Organisation, Shah said collective procurement of software, technology and related services will significantly reduce costs. Instead of 1,400 banks purchasing and maintaining systems independently, NUCFDC will negotiate collective contracts and undertake maintenance, enabling smaller banks to access modern technology at affordable rates.
Shah also highlighted reforms achieved through greater trust and dialogue between UCBs and the RBI,
including permission to expand branches by up to 15% without separate approval, doorstep banking, simplified access to scheduled-bank status for eligible Tier-3 UCBs, lower Priority Sector Lending requirements, enhanced housing-loan limits and extension of the One-Time Settlement facility.
He said the objective of the Umbrella Organisation is not profit-making but to make UCBs more transparent, secure, technologically capable and competitive, while strengthening their ability to serve small traders, entrepreneurs and self-employed people.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Union Ministers of State for Cooperation Krishan Pal Gurjar and Murlidhar Mohol, Maharashtra Cooperation Minister Babasaheb Patil, other state ministers, Cooperation Secretary Ashish Kumar Bhutani, NUCFDC Chairman Jyotindra Mehta, representatives of Urban Cooperative Bank federations from various states and other dignitaries associated with the sector were present at the programme.
