Digital Payment Strategist Three decades with State Bank of India, Head of Product at National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)
CEO, Head of Business Correspondent Federation of India (BCFI). MD at Oxigen Services, Advisor to many firms and startups
Juniper Network Director at Telsima Corp, Senior member at Inkra Network Corp
Multiply Ventures Advisor at Zeta Global, Serial Entrepreneur
Stratify | Google LLC
Ram Rastogi, Partner
Digital Payments Strategist– Thought Leader in Financial Services, RegTech, Public Policy and Payment and Settlement systems.
Key note Speaker on Real Time Payment Systems Payments, Financial Inclusion and Retail Banking. Mentoring various fintech startups in India and USA.
Banking experience of three decades with State Bank of India (SBI) , as a senior executive driving its Strategy, Business Development, ATMs and Emerging Payment Systems and later as a Head of Product Development with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) since its inception.
Designed and rolled out globally acknowledged channel agnostic, ubiquitous, real time payment services – Immediate Payments Service (IMPS) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) .Created ‘USSD Based Payment platform’, *99# .Part of NPCI core team that designed and launched various payments systems like ubiquitous Bharat QR Code ,NETC -FASTag Mobility Card and India’s own card scheme-RuPay, Aadhaar based Biometric Payment-AePS , and offline products such as NACH, CTS and Bharat Bill Payments System (BBPS).
Worked as a Short Term Consultant (STC) with CGAP- a World Bank Organisation for Digital Inclusion and as a Senior Advisor & Subject Matter Expert- Digital Payments with Deloitte. Engaged with various leading global research agencies as their Senior Council Member.
Member of several Digital Financial Inclusion Committees constituted by Indian Government and Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Played a significant role to assist the Committee on ‘Comprehensive Financial Services for Small Businesses and Low Income Households’ to draft a vision document for financial deepening in India. Co-authored Consultation paper of TRAI on the review of regulatory framework for the use of USSD for mobile financial services.
You may get hyperlinked my LinkedIn profile – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramrastogi0708
Sunil Kulkarni, Partner
Sunil Kulkarni is currently the CEO (Designate) – SRO* and Head, Business Correspondent Federation of India (BCFI). He is also having following advisory roles:
Sunil has over 35 years of cross-industry experience in technology-led businesses. In his last executive assignment (Dec 2019), he was the Joint Managing Director for Oxigen Services, a company he helped build over 15 years. He took charge of Oxigen Services (then known as India Prepaid Services Pvt Ltd) as CEO in 2004. He and the Chairman, jointly decided to launch in India’s first e-Distribution Network for mobile recharge coupons and its dispensation over Point of Sale (PoS) terminals, PC and SMS. Sunil is also referred to as the techno-savvy brain behind developing a successful business model, using Technology, for varied services & products, including Oxigen’s Mobile Wallet, an innovative payment mechanism and prepaid wallet, accessible online/on-mobile way back in 2008 when there were no smart phones.
He successfully led the company’s business and was also the architect for the technology solution development. He alongside the Oxigen core team converted Oxigen from a Recharges/BillPay retail aggregation company, to an integrated Branchless Banking & Payment Solutions company. He was also responsible for taking the company to its next greenfield opportunity in Domestic & International Remittances, Merchant Payments, Aadhaar enabled payments and Loyalty, propelling Oxigen into its next growth phase. Before taking the role of CEO-BCFI, he was the founding member & Director on board of the BC Federation of India and also co-chaired Prepaid Payments Instruments (PPI) committee in Payments Council of India (PCI). He has contributed through PCI, enabling environment for PPI industry with his interactions with government and regulator.
He actively participated in Mobile Payments Forum of India (MPFI) in 2007-10 for facilitating RBI’s first prepaid payments instruments (PPI) guidelines in 2009. He also co-chaired the Prepaid Payments Instruments (Mobile Wallets) Committee in the Payments Council of India (PCI) and through his interactions with government and regulator during and post demonetisation, made an immense contribution to creating an enabling environment for the Digital Payments/Wallet industry.
1986-2004: Prior to joining Oxigen, Sunil served as General Manager-Marketing & Business Development in Motorola India’s Wireless Infrastructure business for 9 years, starting in 1995. He looked after Business Development, Business Strategy and Product Management functions for GSM & CDMA wireless technologies. He started his professional journey in 1986 with Siemens Ltd., where he last served as the Head of Semi-Conductor Division.
Sunil is an Engineering Graduate in Electronics & Communication with Gold medal in 1986 from Jodhpur and has done Management Education Program (1992-93) from Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A), Ahmedabad, India.
*SRO: Self-Regulatory Organization, NPCI: National Payments Corporation of India
You may get hyperlinked my LinkedIn profile – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunil-kulkarni-12a3291
Raveen Sastry, Partner
Raveen is currently the Founding partner at Multiply Ventures.
You may get hyperlinked my LinkedIn profile – https://www.linkedin.com/in/raveens/
Murali Vemula, Partner
Murali is currently the Sr Director Software Engineering at Juniper Networks.
You may get hyperlinked my LinkedIn profile –https://www.linkedin.com/in/murali-vemula-069694/
Venu Gopal, Partner
Venu is associated with Stratify and Google LLC.