National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI) is close to naming former Visa India head Uttam Nayak as its chief executive officer (CEO) after A.P. Hota retired in August, two people familiar with the matter said.
Nayak is currently senior vice-president of digital for emerging markets at Visa and had earlier held the position of country manager for India and South Asia at the payments firm.
Dilip Asbe, the interim CEO of NPCI, may get a new position of deputy managing director, the people cited above said, on condition of anonymity. NPCI didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. Nayak didn’t respond to calls and text messages either.
Hota, who was the CEO of NPCI since August 2010, and Asbe had led the introduction of digital payment systems such as Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) since NPCI was set up in 2009.
NPCI, an initiative of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), was created to help build a strong payment infrastructure. Its 10 core promoter banks are State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citibank N.A. and HSBC. Last year, it expanded the shareholding to 56 member banks.
The NPCI CEO’s role is hugely influential in India’s ongoing push to expand digital payments.
The organisation also runs the popular Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app.
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