NPCI widens its shareholding base to 67 entities

By Edil Corneille

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has announced the completion of a private placement of 4.63 per cent of its equity shares worth INR 816.4 million.

This broad basing exercise was done to further diversify and distribute the organisation’s shareholding to a larger set of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulated entities and categories of payment industry participants. The organisation made an offer for the private placement to 131 RBI regulated entities, out of which 19 evinced interest and were allotted shares in NPCI. With this shareholding expansion, NPCI gets on-board some of the leading banks, new categories of banks and the RBI authorised non-bank entities. The total shareholder entities for NPCI now stands at 67.

NPCI, a not-for-profit organisation, is an initiative of India’s central bank RBI and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA). It is focused on bringing innovations in the retail payment systems through the use of technology for achieving greater efficiency in operations and widening the reach of digital payment systems.

“We are extremely pleased with the outcome of this exercise and the confidence expressed in NPCI’s continued growth and larger purpose. With this we have also broad based our shareholding to include new categories like Payment Banks, Small Finance Banks and Payment System Operators in addition to existing Public Sector, Private Sector, Foreign, Co Operative & Regional Rural Banks,” said Rupesh H Acharya, Chief of Finance, NPCI.

ICICI Securities served as the advisor for the private placement. Khaitan & Co, Mumbai, was also associated as Legal Advisor with NPCI in this transaction. NPCI was incorporated in 2008 as an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India. It has changed the way payments are made in India through a bouquet of retail payment products such as RuPay card, Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM), BHIM Aadhaar, National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC Fastag) and Bharat BillPay. NPCI also launched UPI 2.0 to offer a more secure and comprehensive service to consumers and merchants.