Mr. A.P. Hota,Managing Director & CEO of National Payments Corporation of India since February 2009 was a career central banker for 27 years. A significant part of his career has been in the area of design and implementation of Payment systems in India.

During last three decades, he has played a key role in implementation of MICR technology in cheque Clearing, Electronic Funds Transfer, Automated Clearing House and Cheque Truncation system in India. His research document “RTGS System in USA - Lessons for India” as a part of IIB Diamond Jubilee Overseas Fellowship in 1997 was the starting point of RTGS design and implementation in India. Mr. Hota had headed the Department of Payment and Settlement Systems in Reserve Bank from March 2005 to July 2008 during which the ‘Payment and Settlement Systems Act’ was legislated, NEFT was introduced and there was rapid expansion in the access and usage of electronic payment systems. He also played a key role in widening the use of electronic payments in India.

In 2009 he joined as the first Managing Director & CEO of National Payments Corporation of India which has been set up by banks in India under the aegis of Indian Banks’ Association, and support and guidance of Reserve Bank of India to provide central infrastructure for various retail payment systems in the country including card payments. Within a year of his joining, the next generation remittance service - Interbank Mobile Payment Service was launched where 24*7 real-time money transfer was enabled. His mandate includes building a domestic card payment network under the brand name ‘RuPay’ which has made substantial headway during last two years and planned to get operational by March 2012. NPCI is already processing an average volume in number of 5.5 Million ATM transactions a day. NPCI would also play the role of central infrastructure for UID and mobile based financial inclusion transactions.