The Banking Innovation Award
Banking innovation happens under supervision, at scale, and usually on top of systems that cannot be switched off. This category recognises work inside banks and banking infrastructure where those constraints were real and the outcome still moved.
- Independent jury
- 250
- Innovations evaluated
- 4,500+
- Star rating
- 1–5
- Running since
- 2010
Academics, scientists, officials, investors
Across seventeen editions
Every nominee earns an AGBA Innovation Star
India’s longest-running innovation award
Three categories share the balance sheet. This is the one inside the institution.
Most nominations that fail here fail because they were in the wrong category. Read across before you write anything.
Innovation in Banking
Lending, deposits, digital channels, core systems and the risk work inside regulated institutions.
This category
Innovation in FinTech
Payments, lending, wealth and financial infrastructure built as products.
Innovation in InsuranceTech
Claims, underwriting, distribution and risk in Indian insurance.
Who should enter
- Digital channel and onboarding work with measured completion or activation gains
- Lending, collections and credit decisioning inside a regulated institution
- Core and payments modernisation carried out without service disruption
- Financial inclusion products reaching genuinely underserved segments
- Risk, fraud and compliance systems that changed the institution’s exposure
What this award recognises is an institution that moved under supervision — an onboarding that completes, a core that migrated without an outage, credit reaching people it did not reach before. Internal delivery alone is not the case.
If the innovation is a product built outside a bank, enter Innovation in FinTech. If it is insurance, enter Innovation in InsuranceTech.
What the jury looks for
- Problem definition & market opportunityWhether the innovation solves a real problem, backed by evidence and a measurable impact on its target audience.
- InnovativenessNovelty and uniqueness — new technology, functionality or business model — measured against what already exists, including IP.
- Market potential & impactSize and growth of the addressable market, competitive landscape, and scalability across geographies.
- Social impact & sustainabilityContribution to society and the environment, including social responsibility and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
These are the same four criteria — problem definition, innovativeness, market impact and social/sustainability impact — used to assess every category. In this category the jury also weighs the scale of customers, accounts or transactions genuinely affected, how regulatory and audit requirements were handled as part of the design, the evidence of customer outcome rather than internal delivery, and resilience — what happens on the worst day. Read the full evaluation criteria.
Who judges this category
Nominations are assessed by an independent jury, not by the organisers. Jurors are matched to the categories where their expertise lies. These are among those who read banking entries.
Prof. D. JanakiramDirector, Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), established by RBI
Joseph JoshyCTO, International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA)
Dr. Nirupama KulkarniResearch Director, CAFRAL (promoted by the Reserve Bank of India)
Prof. Mridul Kumar SaggarFormer Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India
Tarun KhannaPartner, CX Partners
Anil JoshiManaging Partner, Unicorn India VenturesSix of roughly 250. The full panel spans the IITs, the IIMs, the IIITs, the Indian School of Business, NITI Aayog and central ministries, the Department of Science & Technology, MeitY and CERT-In. See the full jury panel.
The institution on the podium
Banking and finance have run as their own awards across editions. These are among the recent winners, photographed at the ceremony.
Previous winners
Banking has been recognised under its own award in most editions; each row carries the award actually won. The complete record sits in the winners archive.
Category names have changed across editions as the field has moved; the rows above are the closest equivalents in the published record. See the winners archive for the full 1st–16th edition history.
What happens after you submit
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Stage one · nowNomination registration
Register your company and category through the nomination process, then complete the detailed nomination form and processing fee.
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Stage twoJury presentation
Present the innovation to the jury and take questions. Jurors score each entry against the four evaluation criteria and rank it within its category.
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Stage threeStar Certification
Nominees are also assessed for AGBA Innovation Star Certification, an independent maturity rating alongside the category judging.
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Stage fourFinalists announced
Once every category has been evaluated, finalists are announced on the website ahead of the ceremony.
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Stage fiveAward ceremony
Winners are honoured on 18 February 2027 at Hotel Ashoka, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.
Before you write your nomination
Can a technology vendor enter this category?
Yes, where the nomination is for a banking innovation delivered with a named institution and the institution consents.
Is a co-operative or small finance bank judged against a large private bank?
Jurors weigh outcome against scale and constraint. A small institution doing something genuinely novel is not disadvantaged.
What evidence matters most?
Customer outcome under supervision — completion rates, activation, migration without disruption, exposure closed — with the comparison period stated and the regulatory constraints named.
How do I submit a nomination?
Nominations are submitted through the nomination process, which sets out the stages, the supporting material required and the current edition’s dates.
Put the institution in front of the panel
Nominations for the Banking Innovation Award are read by an independent jury of practitioners, academics and investors. Bring the customer outcome, not the internal delivery report.