National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) announced broadening its shareholding base to 67 entities including Paytm, PhonePe, Mobikwik, Pine Labs, Payment Bank, Amazon, IDFC First Bank, Standard Chartered Bank. The announcement came after the completion of the private placement of 4.63 percent of its equity shares worth Rs 81.64 crores. NPCI, the retail payments, and settlement systems operator, had provided the private placement to 131 ‘RBI regulated entities’ out of which 18 had shown interest. NPCI said that the exercise was intended to diversify its shareholding to a larger set of RBI regulated entities and categories of players in the payment ecosystem.
Rupesh H Acharya, Chief of Finance, said that through the share allotment the company has broad-based its shareholding to include new categories like payment banks, small finance banks, and payment system operators in addition to the existing private sector, foreign, co-operative public sector & regional rural banks. It is the regulations of the RBI and Indian Banks’ Association works towards enabling innovation in the retail payment systems through technology for advanced operations and expanding digital payment systems in India.
According to the latest shareholding pattern, including Amazon Pay India, PayU Payments, PhonePe, Pine Labs, Paytm Payments Bank, IDFC First Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, etc., as of 26 November 2020, each shareholding in NPCI was 0.44 percent. Mobikwik and India Post Payments Bank have 0.04 percent shareholding each.
According to NPCI’s 2016 statement, it had expanded its shareholding back in 2016 to 56 banks from 10 banks. This includes 7 regional rural banks, 10 multi-state co-operative banks, 15 private banks, 1 foreign bank, 13 public banks. The 10 banks having shares in NPCI then and recently at SBI, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, Citibank, Bank of Baroda, ICICI Bank, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Bank of India, and HSBC. Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, and Punjab National Bank had the highest percentage of 9.15 percent of shareholding each. SBI, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC Bank, HSBC, and Citibank had 7.12 percent shareholding each.
