The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is set to initiate a cloud services platform by 2025, aimed at aiding financial institutions with more affordable data storage options, reports Reuters.

This move is intended to support local financial companies and counter the current dominance of global cloud service providers.

The RBI’s cloud platform will collaborate with local IT companies, challenging established giants such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.

A senior executive involved in the project was cited by the news agency as saying: “We want to start implementing on a smaller scale in the next few months.”

The pilot is set to gradually expand, focusing on the requirements of smaller banking and financial services firms that find existing cloud services costly.

In December 2024, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das announced the intention to establish a public cloud tailored for the financial sector.

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Indian Financial Technology and Allied Services, RBI’s research division, is spearheading the initial phase of the cloud project.

It will later partner with private tech firms to further develop the service. Consultancy firm EY will provide advisory services for this initiative.

Funding for the initial stages will come from the central bank’s asset development fund, which holds approximately $2.72bn.

Later on, the RBI plans to offer financial firms the opportunity to invest in the project.

This initiative is part of the RBI’s broader strategy to promote the localisation of payment and financial data processing.

One of the sources said: “We have a humongous amount of interest (from private players who want to partner). A significant number of IT companies as well as Indian cloud services companies have expressed their interest.”