Infy Chairman Nilekani to head RBI's digi payment panel

Infosys Chairman, Nandan Nilekani has been appointed as the chairman of the Reserve Bank of India's committee on enhancing digital payments.

Other than Nilekani, Kishore Sansi, Chairman and managing director of Bengaluru-based PSB -- Vijaya Bank is also part of the five-member committee.

The committee includes three other -- H R Khan, former Deputy Governor of RBI; Aruna Sharma Former Secretary, Ministry of Information Technology and Steel and Sanjay Jain. Chief Innovation Officer, Center for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship (CIIE), IIM Ahmedabad.

The committee is expected to submit its report before April 8, 2019. The 5-member committee has been tasked to review the existing status of digitisation of payments in the country, identify the current gaps in the ecosystem and suggests ways to bridge them. It has been also asked to assess the current levels of digital payments in financial inclusion.

The 5-member panel has also been asked to identify best practices that can be adopted in the country to accelerate digitisation of the economy and financial inclusion through greater use of digital payments by the central bank.

"The committee has been tasked to suggest measures to strengthen the safety and security of digital payments," RBI said in a statement.

It is also expected to provide a roadmap for increasing customer confidence and trust while accessing financial services through digital modes, along with suggesting a medium-term strategy for deepening of digital payments.

The move comes at a time when the country has been seeing a dip in the digital payments after an initial surge pushed by the demonetisation drive by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.