Akhil Handa

Global Banking Leader

FirstHand

My attempt to chronicle the evolution of digital platforms in banking and adjacent markets—from the inside of a $300B global bank.

Former President & CDO • Led digital transformation serving 200M+ customers •Read my full story →

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23.7%

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+37%

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+82%

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Deep dive into the latest trends shaping the digital banking landscape

Apple Ecosystem Is a USD 100 Billion BFSI Opportunity in India

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Fintech Innovation•SEP 29, 2025

Apple Ecosystem Is a USD 100 Billion BFSI Opportunity in India

In Sriperumbudur and Hosur, the factory floors tell a new story. What once produced wires and plastic for local markets now ships iPhones to the world. Apple exported USD 25 billion worth of iPhones in the first half of FY25, and India is on track to hit USD 50 billion by year-end — almost 4% of the MSME economy. Beyond Foxconn and Tata, hundreds of smaller suppliers are scaling up with Apple, employing 350,000 Indians today and potentially 1 million by 2030. This manufacturing boom is also a finance story. Vendor credit, export finance, insurance, EMIs, and employee loans together could unlock a ₹7 trillion BFSI opportunity by 2030. It’s a replay of the Maruti-Suzuki effect in the 1980s — when auto suppliers grew into global giants. Now, Apple is catalysing the same transformation in electronics, but at global scale and speed. Every iPhone exported isn’t just a product. It’s credit, insurance, IPOs, and housing loans in motion. An Apple a day doesn’t just make India happy — it makes Indian BFSI very happy.

By Akhil Handa

Recent Articles

Global Trends, Digital Transformation•NOV 26, 2025

Informal Intelligence

India’s future with AI cannot be understood through a Western lens of rigid job roles and formalized labor. Over 80% of India’s workforce operates in fluid, informal systems where work is constantly reshaped by circumstance, not assigned through structured hierarchies. AI is entering not a neatly organized labor market, but a landscape defined by adaptability. While certain process-driven sectors like IT and BPO will feel pressure, the deeper story is one of mutation, not displacement. India repeatedly reorganizes itself through shocks—from demonetization to digital transitions—and this capacity to reconfigure gives it a unique advantage. AI will shrink some outsourcing categories but also create new “first-pass/second-pass” global workflows in fields like radiology, compliance, and legal services, where human oversight remains essential. As India’s domestic consumption surges and millions gain access to AI-enabled tools in local languages, new forms of entrepreneurship, services, and hybrid human–AI work will multiply. Automation in India will follow its own economic logic: not humanoid robots, but targeted, cost-effective tools that integrate into existing workflows. In a world where careers become episodic and tasks evolve rapidly, India’s greatest strength may be its deeply embedded informal intelligence—the ability to adapt, recombine skills, and navigate unstructured opportunity

By Tom Hyland, Akhil Handa

AI in Banking, Digital Transformation•AUG 26, 2025

Opinion in Economic Times, Edge Insights: Who's in charge in banking in the age of AI?

Artificial Intelligence promises to make banking faster, smarter, and more consistent—catching fraud, improving credit decisions, and tightening compliance. Yet, its rise complicates the very notion of accountability. Just as boards and regulators already struggle to assign responsibility in complex financial systems, AI introduces another opaque layer where outcomes may be explainable to no one. The danger lies in treating AI as a “hired gun” to blame, while the real solution may require doubling down: AI monitoring AI, embedding it into control frameworks, and redefining accountability architectures altogether. The future of banking governance won’t be about humans versus machines—it will be about building systems where both are inseparably responsible.

By Akhil Handa

AI in Banking, Fintech Innovation•AUG 24, 2025

AI Governance: Guardrails form Runways

AI governance in India’s BFSI sector stands at a critical inflection point. While the RBI’s FREE-AI Report lays a solid foundation with its seven sutras—fairness, transparency, accountability, safety, inclusivity, human oversight, and sustainability—the real challenge lies in translating frameworks into practice. As the sector grapples with balancing innovation and regulation, five key imperatives emerge: regulate outcomes, not technologies; establish guardrails for new AI-enabled activities; leverage AI as a leapfrog moment through regulator-led sandboxes; use AI to strengthen ethics, not just efficiency; and build indigenous AI ethics rooted in Indian values. If executed well, India’s approach could transform governance from a compliance exercise into an instrument of trust—and position the country as a global standard-setter in AI-led financial services.

By Akhil Handa

AI in Banking•AUG 6, 2025

Banking Accountability in the Age of AI: Who’s Really in Charge?

AI won’t eliminate accountability in banking—it will complicate it. While AI brings speed, scale, and consistency, it also blurs the lines of responsibility. When decisions come from systems no one fully understands, blaming “the algorithm” becomes dangerously easy. True accountability in this new era means building AI not just to decide—but to oversee, audit, and predict failure. We can’t go back to human-only oversight. But we also can’t hide behind AI. The future of banking demands new control systems—and a redefined architecture of trust.

By Akhil Handa

Digital Transformation, Fintech Innovation•JUL 31, 2025

RBI’s Digital Banking Draft Guidelines: A Hard Reset with an Open Canvas

The RBI’s 2025 draft directive on Digital Banking Channels Authorisation is a major regulatory reset, consolidating 16 fragmented circulars into one cohesive framework. It brings much-needed clarity, ensuring uniform compliance across all banks—including RRBs and cooperative banks—while strengthening customer protections with features like explicit consent and read-only modes. Yet, while it simplifies governance, the draft risks slowing innovation by banning third-party promotions on digital platforms, potentially hampering ONDC integrations and embedded finance. Smaller banks may also struggle with the uniform compliance load. The underused Digital Banking Units (DBUs) offer a chance to reinvent legacy banking—if granted operational freedom. Now, with regulation streamlined, the next step is for banks to treat digital not just as a service channel, but as a strategic business driver.

By Akhil Handa

Fintech Innovation, Digital Transformation•JUL 21, 2025

Moats over Markets? JPMorgan’s Data Fee Could Reshape Fintech

JPMorgan Chase, the titan of U.S. consumer and SME banking, is making waves by charging third-party fintechs—like Plaid—hundreds of millions to access customer data via APIs. On the surface, it appears to be a strategic monetization move. But dig deeper, and it's clear: this isn’t about revenue. With API fees generating less than 0.5% of JPMorgan’s annual income, the goal is control, not cash. By raising access costs, the bank is effectively tightening its grip on the fintech ecosystem—potentially pricing out smaller innovators and stifling the open-data-driven progress that has defined modern finance. This quiet power shift raises a critical question: who truly owns financial data—the bank or the customer? In contrast to countries like India, where open banking policy puts data control in the hands of the user, JPMorgan’s approach could signal a retreat from openness. If not tempered with thoughtful safeguards, such a move risks protecting the core while starving future innovation. The battle for the future of finance may not be over infrastructure, but over who chooses to build bridges—or walls.

By Akhil Handa

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Topics I'm Following

These are the areas I'm actively tracking and documenting as they evolve and reshape the financial landscape.

AI in Banking

How artificial intelligence is reshaping financial services

Digital Transformation

Case studies and insights on banking's digital journey

Fintech Innovation

Startups and technologies changing how we bank

Global Trends

International perspectives on banking evolution

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About Me

I'm Akhil Handa, and I've spent the last two decades working in digital banking and financial services. Most recently, I served as President & Chief Digital Officer at Bank of Baroda, where I led digital transformation initiatives across 25 international markets, helping serve over 200 million customers.

I use FirstHand to share what I've learned about the evolution of digital platforms in banking. Having worked at institutions like JPMorgan and contributed to digital finance policy, I try to offer practical insights on where the industry is headed.