NPCI hives off Bhim as separate arm; Lalitha Nataraj to be CEO

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has hived off the UPI-based payment application Bharat Interface for Money (Bhim) as a separate subsidiary to address the growing demand for digital transactions in the country and to promote financial inclusion, the retail payment body said on Tuesday.

Lalitha Nataraj, a former senior executive at IDFC First Bank, has been appointed as the chief executive officer of the new subsidiary named NPCI Bhim Services Ltd (NBSL). Rahul Handa will be the chief business officer, NPCI said in a statement.

Nataraj was the head of digital partnerships, digital acquisitions and payments at IDFC First Bank.


Handa, who worked at ONDC in his previous stint, had joined NPCI as the business head of Bhim in March this year.

The spin-off of Bhim is an interesting development, given the UPI ecosystem is dominated by Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe. Paytm, the third-largest UPI app, has seen its market share drop after the Reserve Bank of India’s crackdown on its payments bank early this year.

Industry insiders expect NPCI to attempt to grab a significant chunk of the UPI payments market with a focused push through the Bhim arm. It could also look to build new UPI-based payments and credit-based use cases for consumers via the app, they said.

NBSL will be the third major entity of NPCI after National International Payments Ltd (NIPL), which is taking UPI outside India, and National Bharat Billpay Ltd (NBBL), which runs the bill payments ecosystem.