ET Awards 2018 for Policy Change Agent of the Year: NPCI
NPCI was the unanimous choice of the jury for the Policy Change Agent award, for the way it revolutionised the payments landscape of the country during challenging times.
By ET Bureau | Updated:
ET Awards 2018: NPCI is the 'Policy Change Agent of the Year'
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) stepped up to help when the government’s Digital India programme was faced with a key challenge: How to move consumers from cash to digital modes of payment? Until then, the not-for-profit organisation owned by banks was known only for the RuPay cards it issued to Jan Dhan account holders. The distant competitor to Visa and Mastercard has since emerged the driving force of the country’s digital payments agenda.
From Bharat Interface for Money or BHIM to Aadhaar Enabled Payments, Aadhaar Pay and FASTags, NPCI developed instruments that allowed the government to push digital transaction. Today, it is the umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
NPCI was the unanimous choice of the jury for the Policy Change Agent award, for the way it revolutionised the payments landscape of the country during challenging times.
While NPCI grabbed headlines in 2017, the work for all this had started in 2010, when the Reserve Bank of India formed a body exclusively to look at driving retail digital payments. AP Hota, then a senior executive at the Payment and Settlement Department at the RBI, became its chief executive.
Oscars of India Inc: Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence 2018
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With India's top policymakers and industry doyens under one roof, the ET Awards 2018 function was a star-studded affair.
With India's top policymakers and industry doyens under one roof, the ET Awards 2018 function was a star-studded affair.
In his speech, Finance Minister Jaitley extolled the virtues of prudence — from the pricing of petrol and diesel to regulatory and fiscal policies. He said India was paying the price for seeking shortcuts to growth after the global financial crisis.
Don’t kill growth by squeezing liquidity, he exhorted, setting the stage for what could be an explosive face-off with RBI board.
In his speech, Finance Minister Jaitley extolled the virtues of prudence — from the pricing of petrol and diesel to regulatory and fiscal policies. He said India was paying the price for seeking shor..
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Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman outlined govt's big Make in India push in large orders, citing companies that have bagged some major deals.
She made light of the ongoing legal tangle over Rafale, predicting that opposition charges of wrongdoing are going to fall flat.
Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman outlined govt's big Make in India push in large orders, citing companies that have bagged some major deals.
She made light of the ongoing legal tangle over Rafale..
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Nitin Gadkari talked of a sector beset with crippling fund crunch, harping on what India needed to do to get past the roadblocks it is facing.
He cited India's waterway gamechanger to drive home the rapid strides the country is making towards dramatically cheaper transportation.
Nitin Gadkari talked of a sector beset with crippling fund crunch, harping on what India needed to do to get past the roadblocks it is facing.
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Piyush Goyal made a strong case for what the govt is doing to put India firmly on the infra superhighway.
He said coal is giving India a sizeable headache, shedding light on an industry swinging between hope and despair.
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He said coal is giving India a sizeable headache, shedding light on an industry swinging bet..
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The Lifetime Achivement award went to Adi Godrej, the patriarch of the 120-year-old Godrej Group, who now performs more of a mentoring role having decided to stay away from day-to-day ops.
The jury felt the award would be a fitting celebration of the deeds of a man whose journey began with a small entity with a Rs 10-cr turnover, which over time transformed into a Rs 32,000-cr behemoth.
The Lifetime Achivement award went to Adi Godrej, the patriarch of the 120-year-old Godrej Group, who now performs more of a mentoring role having decided to stay away from day-to-day ops.
The jury ..
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When Sanjiv Bajaj, the younger son of Bajaj Group chairman Rahul Bajaj, took the reins of the group’s newly spun off financial service division 10 years ago, the business was completely new to him. Yet, over the past decade, he has turned the business, comprising Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv, into a moneymaking machine for the group.
While selecting Bajaj as the Business Leader of the Year, the jury pointed out he entered a highrisk business category and fundamentally altered the consumer finance business both through the use of technology and through execution, with even leading banks later replicating his model.
“I am both excited and humbled to be awarded the Business Leader of the Year,” said Bajaj, managing director at Bajaj Finserv.
(In pic: Venkaiah Naidu presenting the Business Leader of the year Award to Shri Sanjiv Bajaj at the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence in Mumbai)
When Sanjiv Bajaj, the younger son of Bajaj Group chairman Rahul Bajaj, took the reins of the group’s newly spun off financial service division 10 years ago, the business was completely new to him. Y..
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Sumant Sinha has led ReNew Power Ventures to the position of India’s largest clean energy company in a short span of time, overtaking older rivals on the way with a mix of mostly organic growth and a major acquisition in the rapidly growing but extremely competitive sector.
The entrepreneurship and leadership of Sinha, an alumnus of IIT-Delhi, IIM-Calcutta and Columbia University, has helped ReNew Power become India’s No. 1 renewable energy company.
Sinha dedicated the award to his team at ReNew Power.
(In pic: Nitin Gadkari presenting Entrepreneur of the Year Award to Sumant Sinha at the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence in Mumbai)
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It reflected investor confidence on Shantanu Narayen, the 56-year-old chief executive of Adobe, who helped the maker of the PDF file format transition to a cloud-based subscription model that ensured recurring income, instead of one-time licensing of its software.
He also created a multibillion-dollar business at the company by developing tools for digital marketing, sensing the shifting of advertising from traditional platforms to digital.
Narayen’s career took off with Apple, and he also served as the director for desktop and collaboration products at Silicon Graphics. He cofounded Pictra Inc, which is said to have pioneered digital photo sharing on the Internet.
(In pic: Piyush Goyal presenting Global Indian of the Year Award to Shantanu Narayen at the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence in Mumbai)
It reflected investor confidence on Shantanu Narayen, the 56-year-old chief executive of Adobe, who helped the maker of the PDF file format transition to a cloud-based subscription model that ensured..
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As the first chief minister of India’s youngest state, the immediate concern for Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao, who spearheaded a prolonged agitation for a separate state, Telangana, was to restrain flight of capital and instil confidence among businesses. Another was to address the acute power shortage in the state.
After initiating steps to tackle these issues, KCR attracted global attention by announcing the world’s first automatic industrial approvals policy TS-iPASS.
Under this, approvals are granted within 15 days of application for setting up industries, failing which clearance will be deemed conferred with self-certification from the enterprises.
(In pic: Venkaiah Naidu Presenting the Business Reformer of the year Award of Shri K. Chandrashekar Rao and received by Shri KT Rama Rao at at the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence in Mumbai)
As the first chief minister of India’s youngest state, the immediate concern for Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao, who spearheaded a prolonged agitation for a separate state, Telangana, was to restrain ..
Starting with creating the National Financial Switch for all ATM transactions and a centralised cheque clearance mechanism to the IMPS instant bank-to-bank fund transfer and smartphone-based Unified Payments Interface (UPI), NPCI has created products to cater to the varied payment needs of the Indian public.
The UPI is now getting replicated in several countries. It has also opened the gates for innovation with tech giants like Google and WhatsApp developing payment offerings for Indians.
“Contribution of the board, employees, banks, ecosystem efforts and guidance of the RBI have helped us get to this stage,” Dilip Asbe, NPCI’s current CEO, said, reacting to the news of it getting the award.
