India’s financial authorities have stepped up scrutiny of Anthropic’s Mythos AI model, with senior government and regulatory officials assessing its potential risks and opportunities for the country’s fintech ecosystem.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman held a meeting with banks on issues related to Mythos on Thursday. Officials from the Department of Financial Services (DFS), MeitY and CERT-In were part of the discussions, signalling a coordinated approach across agencies.

M. Nagaraju, secretary at DFS, described Mythos as both a challenge and an opportunity. “Mythos is a threat and opportunity for the fintech ecosystem,” he said, as the government and regulators work to understand the technology better.

The meeting deliberated on various risks that AI posed for the financial sector. Banks have been urged to take preemptive measures to secure their systems, data and customers’ money.

"It was advised that a robust mechanism for real-time threat intelligence sharing may be established among banks, @IndianCERT and other relevant agencies so that emerging threats are identified early and disseminated across the ecosystem without delay," the finance ministry said in a post on X.

Banks were further advised to immediately report any suspicious activity or cyber incident to the relevant authorities, including Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), and to maintain close coordination with all agencies concerned, it said.

Regulators across Asia, Europe and the United States have already warned banks to review their defences.