Safeguard financial institutions against cyber terrorists: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration of Reserve Bank of India's ₹169-crore data centre and Cybersecurity Training Institute, in Bhubaneswar. Credit: PMO

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday (October 25, 2026) emphasised the need to safeguard financial institutions against cybercriminals and cyberterrorists, warning that the changing nature of warfare had made cybersecurity an increasingly critical concern.

Mr. Modi was inaugurating the Reserve Bank of India’s new data centre and Cybersecurity Training Institute in Bhubaneswar. “We all know that wars today are not fought with weapons alone. A country can also be weakened by attacks on its economy. As India grows stronger economically, protecting our banking system from cybercriminals and cyberterrorists becomes equally essential,” the PM said.

“The nature of cyber threats is changing. We cannot confront these emerging challenges with outdated systems, old training methods and obsolete tools. We need modern infrastructure as well as a skilled workforce,” he said, adding that this was where the Cybersecurity Training Institute assumed great importance.

Taking a dig at previous Congress governments at the Centre, Mr. Modi said banks had been out of the reach of ordinary citizens for decades while select groups had been benefiting from banking systems due to their proximity to power.

“Banks were nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s in the name of helping the poor. Yet, until 2014, more than half the country’s population remained outside the banking ecosystem. Banking products and services, including loans, were a distant dream even for many middle class families. Poor people, small farmers, landless women and girls could not even imagine accessing them,” Mr. Modi said.

“In New Delhi, thousands of crores of rupees in bank loans were extended over telephone to a select group of people close to certain Congress leaders and those who had access to them. Poor and middle class families needed a guarantor even to open a bank account. But under the Congress’s ‘phone banking system’, thousands of crores of rupees were readily available to the rich at any time,” he said.

“This culture of favouritism eventually pushed India’s banking system into the grip of non-performing assets. The banking system was brought to the brink of collapse,” he said.

“Over the past several years, the systems we have built and the new ecosystem developed under Digital India has taken banking services to every citizen across the country,” he said.

He also lauded Odisha’s economic growth. “The eastern Indian State has transitioned from a mineral-based economy to a micro-chip manufacturing hub,” the PM said.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also spoke on the occasion.