NPCI's first employee Dilip Asbe is now its MD & CEO

In a surprise move, the National Payments Corporation (NPCI) on Monday elevated Dilip Asbe as the new managing director and chief executive.

Before the elevation Asbe was the chief operating officer of the RBI-promoted national payment gateway, and was also the acting chief executive after the retirement of its founder-CEO AP Hota last August.

According to media reports, Uttam Nayak, a senior vice-president with Visa now based in Dubai, who had previously worked as its India head as well, was the frontrunner to occupy the corner office at NPCI.

Asbe joined the NPCI in 2010 as the chief technology officer and was the first employee hired by the body which has virtually shaped the digital payments journey in the country.

He played a pivotal role in designing, building, operationalisation and management of large scale payment processing platforms like the unified payments interface (UPI), Bharat interface for money (BHIM), immediate payment service (IMPS) and the country's homegrown card network RuPay.

Asbe was also involved in setting up payments infrastructure like National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC), RuPay international debit and credit card, direct benefit transfer (DBT) platforms using Aadhaar payments bridge (APB).

The NPCI was set up by the Reserve Bank in 2009 as the central infrastructure for various retail payment systems and is owned by banks.