Exclusive: India cenbank plans 2025 launch of cloud services, countering dominance of global firms

Haripriya Suresh - Reuters - 18/11
India's central bank will launch a pilot programme in 2025 offering local cloud data storage to financial firms at affordable prices, according to two sources aware of the matter, who declined to be identified as conversations are confidential.
MUMBAI, Nov 18 (Reuters) - India's central bank will launch a pilot programme in 2025 offering local cloud data storage to financial firms at affordable prices, according to two sources aware of the matter, who declined to be identified as conversations are confidential.
The Reserve Bank of India's planned cloud platform will use local IT firms, pitting it against the likes of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and IBM Cloud, in a first-of-its-kind initiative from a major global central bank.
The burgeoning cloud services market in Asia's third largest economy was estimated at $8.3 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $24.2 billion by 2028, according to a report, opens new tab by International Data Corporation, but it is largely dominated by foreign firms.
“We want to start implementing on a smaller scale in the next few months,” said one of the two sources, a senior executive working on the project.
The pilot will be expanded in phases over the next few years, the source said, adding the cloud service will be built keeping in mind the needs of smaller banking and financial services firms who find existing offerings unaffordable.
In December last year, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das announced plans to set up a p...
[Short citation of 8% of the original article]