The National Payments Corporation of India said it has completed a private placement of 4.63% of its equity shares worth ₹81.64 crores, allowing small finance and payment banks, as well as fintechs to be shareholders in the organization. NPCI had made an offer for the private placement to 131 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulated entities, of which 19 showed interest and were allotted shares in NPCI. With this, small finance and payment banks and digital payment fintechs including BillDesk, Amazon Pay, PayU India, PhonePe, Pine Labs, and MobiKwik have become shareholders of NPCI. They will each be holding 0.44% of the shares of NPCI. This takes the total number of NPCI’s shareholders to 67. Earlier, the RBI had instructed NPCI to broad-base its shareholdings to represent a larger segment of participants. Apart from the new-age entities, NPCI has also added Standard Chartered Bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank, and IDFC First Bank as its shareholders. Currently, government-owned banks such as State Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, and Canara Bank own more than 40% stake in NPCI.
