Shillong, Aug 18: The All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) has expressed serious concern over the proposed implementation of the Reserve Bank of India’s “Framework for Responsible and Ethical Enablement of Artificial Intelligence” (FREE-AI) stating this was done without structured consultations with trade unions, civil society groups, and consumer organisations.
The confederation said it acknowledges the framework’s aspiration to make AI trustworthy, fair and accountable, but warns that a “top down, time-bound imposition”, absent social dialogue, risks legal uncertainty, consumer harm, exclusion of vulnerable segments, and fresh stresses on already stretched Public Sector Banks (PSBs).
“Technology cannot be a substitute for public trust. The RBI’s ‘Seven Sutras’: Trust, People-First, Fairness, Accountability, Understandability, Safety and Innovation are laudable. But unless these are translated into enforceable rights for customers and enforceable protections for workers, we fear an AI roll out that amplifies risk instead of reducing it,” AIBOC General Secretary Rupam Roy said in a statement.
He said through its analysis the framework highlights concerns that require immediate, consultative resolution before sector wide adoption.
AIBOC has demanded the RBI to constitute a National Council for AI in Banking with representation of Banking trade unions, civil society, and consumer advocates; publish a White Paper and hold open consultations before codification.
It wants a phase in approach with moratorium on high risk AI use cases until guardrails (human in the loop, recourse, fairness audits, AI BCP, incident reporting) are operational and independently validated.
Calling for no forced redundancies, funded upskilling, RACI based accountability, HR safeguards against scapegoating for policy compliant errors, the confederation also sought mandatory AI disclosures, adverse action notices, right to human review, local-language explanations, and compensation protocols for harm.
Demanding a level playing field for PSBs/RRBs the banking confederation has called for vendor accountability.
Stating that AIBOC is not anti-technology it said, “Responsible AI can strengthen public trust only if it is built with the people who deliver and depend on banking services. Dialogue first, deployment next, that is the path to innovation with accountability.”
