By Nishit Navin and Ashwin Manikandan
BENGALURU/MUMBAI, May 5 (Reuters) – India’s Punjab National Bank is stepping up investments in cybersecurity and accelerating procurement of technology to guard against rising digital threats including those from advanced AI models, a senior executive said on Tuesday.
The country’s third largest state-run lender by market capitalisation has earmarked about 20% of its technology budget for cybersecurity, or roughly 7 billion to 8 billion rupees ($73.5 million – $84 million) for the current financial year, executive director D Surendran told Reuters in an interview, adding that this allocation is more than 50% higher than the previous year.
“We don’t want to compromise on this kind of expenditure,” Surendran said, adding the bank will increase the spending further if required.
PNB’s move comes amid heightened regulatory focus on risks emerging from advanced AI models including Anthropic’s Mythos.
Last month India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman met with heads of top banks to gauge preparedness against AI-related cybersecurity risks. India’s central bank has also been in talks with global regulators, lenders and government officials to understand the potential risks, Reuters has reported.
PNB is also fast-tracking purchases of security tools, including firewalls and other systems to address vulnerabilities, Surendran said.
“We have increased our frequency of audit… now we have made our audit process 24/7 so that the criticality will be identified fast,” Surendran said.
PNB SEES SUSTAINED LOAN GROWTH
The New-Delhi based lender, earlier in the day, posted a more than 14% rise in net profit to 52.25 billion rupees, helped by healthy loan growth and improving asset quality.
Loans grew 12.7% year-on-year while deposits rose 9.2%.
The bank will target 12-13% loan growth in financial year 2026/27, Surendran said, driven by credit to small and medium-sized enterprises and retail loans, he said.
The bank expects deposits to grow around 9-10% for the year.
($1 = 95.2800 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nishit Navin and Ashwin Manikandan; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar)