NPCI onboards Amazon, Paytm, PhonePe as new shareholders

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) announced on Thursday that it has completed private placement of 4.63 per cent of its equity shares worth Rs 81.64 crore. At the end of its latest broad-basing exercise, the organisation has on-boarded Amazon Pay, PhonePe and Paytm Payments Bank and PhonePe as the new shareholders. With this, the umbrella organisation for retail payments has now expanded its total shareholder base to 67.

"This broad basing exercise was done to further diversify and distribute the NPCI shareholding to a larger set of the RBI regulated entities and categories of payment industry participants. NPCI made an offer for the private placement to 131 RBI regulated entities, out of which 19 evinced interest and were allotted shares in NPCI. With this shareholding expansion, NPCI gets on-board some of the leading banks, new categories of banks and the RBI authorised non-bank entities," NPCI said in a statement.

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As per the shareholding pattern disclosed by NPCI, Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank hold the highest stake with 9.15 per cent each, whereas Canara Bank holds 8.14 per cent share. Lenders including State Bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HSBC and Citibank, each, hold 7.12 per cent stake.

"We are extremely pleased with the outcome of this exercise and the confidence expressed in NPCI's continued growth and larger purpose. With this we have also broad-based our shareholding to include new categories like payment banks, small finance banks and payment system operators in addition to existing public sector, private sector, foreign, cooperative and regional rural banks," said Rupesh H Acharya, Chief of Finance, NPCI.

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