Union Bank of India Unveils AI‑Powered SUDARSHAN Hub for Governance

Union Bank of India inaugurates ‘Union SUDARSHAN’ a first-of-its-kind Centralised Banking Intelligence Hub for real-time governance, risk oversight and operational excellence, 14 Other New Initiatives and Union Bank Museum

Union Bank of India on 10.09.2026, inaugurated ‘Union SUDARSHAN’, the Bank's first fully automated, centralised banking intelligence hub, marking a significant milestone in its digital transformation journey. The event, held at Union Bank of India, M.S. Marg, Mumbai, was graced by Shri Sanjay Lohiya (IAS), Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Government of India, in the presence of Shri Asheesh Pandey, Managing Director & CEO, Union Bank of India, along with Shri Nitesh Ranjan and Shri Ramasubramanian S, Executive Directors, and Shri Prakash Baliarsingh, Dr. Priti Jay Rao and Shri Prakash Chandra Kandpal, Non-Executive Directors on the Board of the Bank. Senior executives from other Banks, LIC and Indian Banks' Association were also present on the occasion.

At the event, Union Bank of India also launched 14 new strategic initiatives aimed at enhancing customer convenience, improving operational efficiency, and enabling seamless banking services. Designed after extensive research and consultation with field functionaries, the initiatives are intended to help the Bank's systems navigate and respond with far greater clarity, empowering employees to serve customers with confidence, speed and ownership.

The event also witnessed the inauguration of the ‘Union Bank Museum’, showcasing the Bank's evolution and milestones, celebrating its legacy, culture and contribution to India's banking and financial landscape, while paying tribute to the founders of Union Bank of India, erstwhile Corporation Bank and erstwhile Andhra Bank.

Chief Guest Address: Shri Sanjay Lohiya, IAS, Secretary, DFS, MOF, GOI highlighted the growing importance of cyber security in today's digital banking landscape and emphasised the effective use of technology to promote ease of doing business, strengthen cyber resilience, enhance customer-centric service delivery and support sustainable business growth. He encouraged the Bank to continue introducing initiatives that make it more robust, resilient and future-ready. He also highlighted the importance of engaging India's youth in the banking and financial ecosystem and harnessing their contribution towards the vision of a Viksit Bharat.

MD & CEO Remarks: Shri Asheesh Pandey, Managing Director & CEO, Union Bank of India, said, "Union SUDARSHAN reflects our vision of building a smarter, more agile and future-ready institution. By harnessing the power of data, artificial intelligence and intelligent automation, we are building efficiency across systems, strengthening governance, enabling proactive risk management and enhancing customer service."

About Union SUDARSHAN: Union SUDARSHAN represents a paradigm shift from conventional monitoring systems to an intelligence-led governance framework. Powered by advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, the platform identifies anomalies across channels through intelligent behavioural baselines, combining automation with human governance. This enables early risk detection, stronger oversight and evidence-based decision-making, marking a strategic shift from reactive monitoring to proactive governance. The platform also features an exception-based alert management framework with automated escalation across hierarchies.

Executive Director Remarks: Shri Nitesh Ranjan, Executive Director, Union Bank of India, said “The 14 new initiatives launched today are aimed squarely at ease of doing business — for our customers and for our own staff. Each of them has been designed to simplify processes, cut down turnaround times and remove friction from everyday banking. Together, these initiatives mark a decisive step towards a more efficient, customer-centric Union Bank of India.”

Together, Union SUDARSHAN and the Bank’s strategic initiatives reflect Union Bank of India's continuing commitment to becoming a Bank for the Future — one that combines technology, efficiency and institutional legacy to deliver stronger governance, sharper agility and a superior banking experience for every stakeholder.

7 in 10 Indian Banks Run AI in Production; Security and Control, Not ROI, Is Now the Main Brake on Scale: Zeta Survey

7 in 10 Indian Banks Run AI in Production; Security and Control, Not ROI, Is Now the Main Brake on Scale: Zeta Survey

Survey of 40 CXOs across 18 leading banks and NBFCs finds AI live in bounded, reviewable use cases, with roughly three-quarters of technology and risk leaders naming security and data privacy as the leading barrier to going further.

Most banks direct less than 10% of new-project technology spend to AI, and four in ten digital leaders cannot yet point to a high-ROI use case, pointing to value that is real but not yet repeatable.

Zeta today announced the findings of its 2026 CXO survey on the state of AI in Indian banking, based on responses from 40 CXOs across 18 leading banks and NBFCs. AI is now in production at most institutions: 70% of CDO respondents place their banks at selective or scaled deployment, including 30% at scaled deployment. Adoption is strongest in bounded, reviewable areas such as customer service, fraud and risk analytics, document processing and software testing. Integration into end-to-end workflows and consequential decisions is at an earlier stage.

The survey points to a clear divide between piloting AI successfully and deploying it repeatably at scale. Banks have proven that AI works in production. What remains harder is reproducing that success across the institution without rebuilding data, integrations and controls for every new use case. The technology estate is more connected than ever, but the capabilities that make it usable by AI, from permissioned data and AI-operational infrastructure to engineering controls, governance and skills, are developing at different speeds.

Investment reflects this. Most institutions surveyed direct less than 10% of new-project technology spend to AI, including some with AI across multiple functions. The survey suggests this is not a lack of conviction: lack of ROI clarity is the lowest-rated barrier, and executive scepticism and employee resistance rank below skills and security. Banks are measured because control, not appetite, sets the pace.

Key findings from the survey

AI is creating meaningful operational impact, but it remains concentrated in structured workflows.

• - 88% of COO respondents identify retail lending as an area where AI is delivering meaningful impact.
• 75% cite customer service.
• 63% each cite CASA and back-office operations.

Banks are confident about data availability; making it usable for AI is the harder problem.

• 80% of CIOs and CTOs describe their data environment as mostly ready for AI at scale.
• 61% point to insufficient labelled or training data.
• 53% to privacy and consent.
• 46% to siloed data.
• 67% are using or piloting AI to enhance or enrich their data.

Technology assets are connected; making them operable by AI is the next step.

• Real-time data platforms and API-first architectures: 79% adoption.
• Core modernisation and cloud: 64%.
• Advanced analytics and MLOps: 43%.

AI has a foothold in software engineering; adoption thins as AI moves from producing to executing.

• 80% report using AI in testing and QA.
• 60% in code generation.
• 40% in code review.
• 30% each in specifications, documentation, deployment, CI/CD, and incident detection.

Banks are preparing to take AI into consequential decisions; governance is developing alongside.

• 60% of CROs identify AI-led credit-risk models, predictive early-warning systems and real-time fraud decisioning as top priorities.
• 60% say Responsible AI frameworks are under development.
• 20% describe model-risk management as very mature.

AI is changing work before it changes workforce size; internal capability-building is catching up.

• Half of operations leaders expect AI-led productivity gains to release capacity for redeployment.
• None expect workforce reductions above 20%.
• Banks are building AI skills faster through specialist hiring (3.33/5) and external partners (3.0/5) than internal development (1.0/5).

From selective production to repeatable scale

Taken together, the findings suggest Indian banking has moved past the challenge of taking AI from experiment to production. Production adoption is real but selective, concentrated where the problem is well understood, outcomes can be reviewed and existing controls contain the consequences of error.

The question now is whether banks can take what works in these settings and reproduce it across the institution without rebuilding the surrounding data, integrations, controls and engineering practices each time. The survey indicates that this depends on two shared foundations rather than more individual deployments: a core that AI can use, with banking meaning and permissions travelling with the data, and a control layer that establishes what AI may access, decide and execute and keeps a record of it.

“Indian banks have shown that AI creates value in production. The next challenge is making that success repeatable, and the survey is clear about what stands in the way: not conviction, but control,” said Sivaram Kowta, President, Zeta India.

About the Survey

Zeta's 2026 CXO survey on AI in Indian banking draws on responses from 40 CXOs across 18 leading banks and NBFCs, including CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, CROs and COOs. It examines AI adoption and the institutional capabilities required to scale it across data and infrastructure, operations and workflows, engineering and SDLC, governance and trust, and workforce and organisation.

About Zeta:

Zeta is a next-gen banking technology company. Its cloud-native and fully API-enabled platform supports card processing, issuing, lending, core banking, fraud management, loyalty programs, digital banking apps, and more. With over 1,700 employees globally, Zeta empowers financial institutions to innovate and rapidly launch compliant financial products. Globally, customers have issued over 25M cards using Zeta’s platform.

Media Contact:
Aafia Feroze | [9902491526](tel:9902491526) | aafiaf@zeta.tech

Axis Finance Unveils Drishti, Its In-House Digital Rules Engine to Transform Loan Decisioning With Speed and Intelligence

• Configurable digital platform to enhance speed, consistency and data-led decisioning across loan journeys
• Aims to improve turnaround times and strengthen risk oversight across retail and MSME lending

Axis Finance Limited (AFL), one of India’s fast-growing non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), today announced the launch of Axis Finance Drishti, its in-house Business Rules Engine (BRE). The platform is designed to bring greater speed, consistency and intelligence to credit decision-making. In its first phase, Drishti has been rolled out for Personal Loans, Business Loans, Loan Against Property and Disha Home Loans.

Developed as a configurable digital platform, Drishti enables automated and policy-driven credit assessments by combining underwriting workflows with data-led insights and statistical scorecards. The platform incorporates real-time decisioning, dynamic policy implementation and integration with multiple data sources including alternate data to support both straight-through processing (STP) and assisted credit journeys.

The initiative has been introduced in alignment with AFL’s core strategy, ‘Grow the Good’, to strengthen its digital lending & technical capabilities and enhance the overall borrowing experience for customers. It is expected to drive operational excellence by enabling faster, smarter and more scalable credit decisioning, improving efficiency while delivering a more seamless and frictionless loan journey.

With Drishti, AFL aims to bring greater standardization to credit evaluation, thereby enhancing consistency and governance in lending decisions. This marks a key step in Axis Finance’s ongoing focus on leveraging technology and analytics to simplify lending processes while reinforcing disciplined risk management and operational efficiency.

Commenting on the development, Sai Giridhar, MD & CEO, Axis Finance Limited, said, “At Axis Finance, our focus is on building a more agile and analytics enabled lending ecosystem. With the launch of Axis Finance Drishti, we are strengthening our ability to deliver faster, more consistent credit decisions by embedding intelligence, advance analytics and automated credit workflows into our core decisioning frameworks, while maintaining strong governance and risk discipline. As we scale, investments in such capabilities will be critical to enhancing customer experience, improving portfolio quality and supporting sustainable portfolio growth.”

Axis Finance continues to prioritise customer experience through ongoing investments in technology and process improvements. Over the past year, the Company has introduced initiatives such as ABC Scorecards to enhance objectivity in credit assessment and an AI-assisted quality monitoring framework for collection, reinforcing fair and transparent customer interactions. Together, these efforts reflect AFL’s focus on combining analytics, technology and governance to drive more efficient and customer-centric lending journeys.

About Axis Finance Limited

AFL was incorporated in India on 27th April 1995 and is a subsidiary of Axis Bank. It is a non-deposit accepting non-banking finance company (NBFC) regulated by the RBI.

AFL is a diversified, AAA rated NBFC serving Retail, MSME and Corporates with a clear focus on lending to India’s enterprise ecosystem. On the retail front, AFL offers a diversified suite of products including Loans Against Property, Personal Loans, Business Loans, Shakti M-LAP, Disha-HL, Home Loans, Kushal Loans and Vyapar Loans. In the MSME segment, the Company operates through its dedicated Retail Banking Group (RBG), Business Banking Group (BBG), and SME verticals. The corporate portfolio includes Collateralized Lending, Corporate Financing, and Real Estate Funding.

Axis Max Life Deploys GreyLabs Voice AI, Driving 15% Sales Uplift Through 100% Call Intelligence

• By analyzing over 6 lakh customer conversations - totalling over 1.4 Cr minutes of call time across 700+ agents, with GreyLabs AI’s Voice AI Suite, Axis Max Life is driving measurable improvement in sales conversion, agent performance, and product design

Axis Max Life Insurance Ltd., formerly known as Max Life Insurance Company Limited (“Axis Max Life”/“Company”), has deployed GreyLabs AI's Voice AI Suite, purpose-built for BFSI enterprises, to unlock deeper customer intelligence and drive sales effectiveness. The deployment has enabled Axis Max Life to move beyond limited, selective call reviews to 100% AI-led assessment of all meaningful calls, surfacing actionable intelligence that has contributed to a nearly 15% uplift in sales conversions.

One of the most significant discoveries from the deployment: the first 90-120 seconds of a sales conversation predicts conversion propensity more powerfully than any customer demographic profile. This insight helps Axis Max Life identify high-intent customers and guides its telesales teams, shifting sales strategy from who the customer is to what they say on the call.

Axis Max Life has built an advanced digital life insurance business over the past five years. Its online business has grown 10x during this period, with digital channels now contributing around 15% of the company's Annualised Premium Equivalent (APE). Today, one in three new customers is acquired digitally, and the online business continues to grow at approximately 4x the industry growth rate, making Axis Max Life one of the digitally advanced life insurance businesses in India.

As Axis Max Life's digital business scaled rapidly, the volume and complexity of telesales conversations grew beyond what traditional review processes could meaningfully analyse. Recognising the untapped intelligence within these conversations, Axis Max Life partnered with GreyLabs AI to build a more systematic, AI-led approach to understanding customer intent at scale.

With GreyLabs AI, Axis Max Life now analyses all meaningful conversations across more than 700 agents, covering over 6 lakh calls and 1.4 Cr. minutes of customer interactions. Post-conversation, contextual follow-up messages built around what customers actually said rather than where they dropped off, have driven click-through rates significantly higher. Even product design decisions are now driven directly by customer voice.

Aman Goel, Founder & CEO, GreyLabs AI

Speaking on the development, Aman Goel, Founder & CEO, GreyLabs AI, said, “Axis Max Life Insurance has been an exceptional partner, a team that was willing to fundamentally rethink how customer intelligence should work in a regulated industry. BFSI as a sector has historically been cautious about AI adoption and rightly so. But what this deployment demonstrates is that when AI is implemented with the right guardrails, the right intent, and a genuine focus on business outcomes rather than technology for its own sake, the results are transformative. What Axis Max Life has shown is that in regulated industries, AI does not need to replace human judgment, it needs to inform it. That is the model we are building across BFSI."

Vaibhav Kumar, Head – Product Management and E-Commerce, Axis Max Life Insurance, said, "At Axis Max Life, our digital business is built on the principle of understanding what our customers need. GreyLabs AI's Voice AI Suite has given us an ability to listen to our customers at scale - not just what they say, but what they mean. The intelligence we've gained has helped us serve customers better, design more relevant products, and build more meaningful conversations at every touchpoint. This is exactly the kind of partnership that helps us deliver on our promise to customers."

Vaibhav Kumar, Head - Products, ECommerce and Enterprise COE

Building on these results, Axis Max Life and GreyLabs AI are exploring expanded applications of AI across the sales lifecycle including a Voice AI Calling Agent being implemented to proactively engage prospects, guide them through their purchase journey. This collaboration reflects a broader shift underway across India's BFSI sector demonstrating that regulated financial institutions can deploy AI with confidence, compliance, and measurable business impact.

About GreyLabs AI

GreyLabs AI is a leading Voice AI and Voice Analytics company purpose-built for BFSI enterprises, backed by Rs. 100 crore Series A funding from Elevation Capital and Z47. The company works with 100+ institutions such as Axis Bank, RBL Bank, IDFC FIRST Bank, AU Bank, DCB Bank, Federal Bank, Axis Finance, Piramal Finance, PhonePe, BharatPe, and more - helping them deploy AI across sales, collections, renewals, and customer support.

Its solutions include Voice AI Calling Agents and Voice Analytics, enabling human-like customer interactions, 100% call audit coverage, agent performance assessment, compliance-led monitoring, and customer intelligence at scale. GreyLabs AI is focused on building secure, compliant, and outcome-driven AI infrastructure that financial institutions can trust and build on.

About Axis Max Life Insurance Limited

Axis Max Life Insurance Limited, formerly known as Max Life Insurance Company Ltd., is a subsidiary of Max Financial Services Limited (“MFSL”) with Axis Bank Limited and its affiliates also being shareholders of the Company. Axis Max Life offers comprehensive protection and long‑term savings life insurance solutions through its multi‑channel distribution, including agency and third‑party partners. The Company has built its operations on a need‑based sales process, a customer‑centric engagement model and trained human capital. As per audited financials for FY2025‑26, Axis Max Life recorded a gross written premium of INR 38,877 crore.

Jio Payments Bank Introduces UPI-based Cash Withdrawal Services

Jio Payments Bank Limited (JPBL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jio Financial Services Limited has introduced UPI-based cash withdrawal through its Business Correspondent (BC) touchpoints, marking an important step towards strengthening India’s digital payments ecosystem and advancing financial inclusion in the country.

The feature enables customers, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas, to conveniently withdraw cash by simply scanning a UPI QR code and authorizing the transaction through their UPI application, eliminating the need for debit cards or access to traditional ATM infrastructure.

By enabling cardless cash withdrawals at BC touchpoints, the initiative bridges the gap between digital payments and physical cash access, while providing first-time digital users with an assisted and secure way to experience UPI transactions.

Through this initiative, JPBL continues to leverage the digital payments infrastructure and its last-mile BC network to expand accessible banking services, strengthen UPI's reach among cash-dependent segments, and enhance financial inclusion across rural and semi-urban India.

About Jio Payments Bank Limited

Jio Payments Bank Limited (JPBL) is a next-generation, digital-first bank committed to revolutionizing banking in India. Granted approval by the Reserve Bank of India under the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, JPBL was incorporated in November 2016 to offer secure, simple, and inclusive banking solutions for every Indian. Its suite of offerings is designed to meet the diverse financial needs of individuals and businesses alike.

About Jio Financial Services Limited:

Jio Financial Services Limited (JFSL) is a Core Investment Company (CIC) registered with the Reserve Bank of India. As a new-age institution, JFSL operates a full-stack financial services ecosystem through customer-facing subsidiaries, including Jio Credit Limited, Jio Insurance Broking Limited, Jio Payment Solutions Limited, Jio Leasing Services Limited, Jio Finance Platform and Service Limited, and Jio Payments Bank Limited.

Through a 50:50 joint venture with BlackRock, JFSL offers asset management services in India through Jio BlackRock Asset Management Private Limited; and wealth management through Jio BlackRock Investment Advisers Private Limited. The JV with BlackRock also proposes to offer broking services through Jio BlackRock Broking Private Limited.

JFSL has entered into a 50:50 joint venture with the Allianz Group and has set up Allianz Jio Reinsurance Limited to offer reinsurance services in India. The two entities have also signed a non-binding agreement to explore opportunities in general and life insurance.

With a digital-first model, JFSL is committed to enhancing the financial well-being of Indian citizens by enabling them to borrow, transact, save, and invest seamlessly. Through the JioFinance app, customers can access a wide range of solutions including loans, savings accounts, investment products and solutions, UPI, bill payments, recharges, digital insurance, financial tracking and management tools, and more.

For more updates, please visit www.jfs.in

HCLTech and Thought Machine Forge Global Alliance to Accelerate AI-Powered Banking Transformation

HCLTech, a leading global technology company, today announced a global partnership with Thought Machine, a pioneer in cloud native banking technology, to accelerate the modernization of banks worldwide. The partnership aims to enable banks to rapidly transition from legacy systems and frameworks to intelligent, autonomous financial institutions powered by AI and cloud technologies.

Thought Machine’s Vault platform — next-generation core banking and payments technology — will be at the core of this transformation. By replacing outdated infrastructure with Vault’s cloud native architecture, banks can automate key operations, enhance efficiency and deliver personalized customer experiences. HCLTech will bring its deep expertise in banking technology, regulatory compliance and complex integrations to support rapid innovation and faster product launches.

As part of the partnership, HCLTech will offer full-stack transformation services through Vault-certified delivery teams, global fintech Centers of Excellence (CoEs) and a robust DevSecOps foundation. The company will also establish a dedicated global CoE for Vault Core and Vault Payments, focused on delivering modular, real-time and scalable solutions for the financial services sector. The joint offering will enable banks, whether established institutions or new challengers, to build agile, resilient and future-ready ecosystems rooted in AI-led strategies.

“Our global partnership with HCLTech marks a significant step in helping banks break free from legacy constraints and adopt truly digital-first models,” said Randy McFarlane, Global Head of Partnerships at Thought Machine. “Together, we will deliver intelligent, self-optimizing systems that evolve with customer needs.”

“This collaboration reflects our vision to lead the future of autonomous banking through cloud, data and AI,” said Sudip Lahiri, Executive Vice President and Head—Europe and UKI, Financial Services, HCLTech. “By joining forces with Thought Machine, we will help banks unlock exponential value, reduce operational friction and accelerate time to market.”

About Thought Machine

Thought Machine has developed the foundations of modern banking with its cloud-native core banking and payments technology. Its cloud-native core banking platform, Vault Core, is trusted by leading banks and financial institutions worldwide, including Intesa Sanpaolo, ING Bank Śląski, Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered, SEB, Lunar, Atom bank, Curve, and more.

Vault Payments is a cloud-native payments processing platform – comprising a Universal Payment Engine to support all card and account-to-account payment types.

Vault Core and Vault Payments have been written from scratch as an entirely cloud-native system, giving banks full control to build any product required to flourish in a rapidly changing world.

Thought Machine is a global team spread across offices in London, New York, Singapore, and Sydney and has raised more than $500m in funding.

For more information, visit thoughtmachine.net