PCI designates Vishwas Patel as its new Chairman and Loney Antony as the new Co-Chairman

Payments Council of India (PCI), in its latest Annual General Meeting, has announced the appointment of Vishwas Patel, Director, Infibeam Avenues, as its new Chairman. Vishwas has been associated with PCI ever since its inception in 2013 and was serving as its Co-Chairman of Payments Council of India. He takes over from Naveen Surya, who has been elevated to the post of Chairman Emeritus. PCI has also announced the appointment of Loney Antony, Managing Director, Hitachi Payment Services, as its new Co-Chairman.

In his capacity as the Chairman of PCI, Vishwas will drive the agenda of creating a sustainable environment conducive to the development of digital payments industry in India. He along with Loney and Naveen will strive towards achieving the government’s target of growing the volume of digital transactions to 30 billion for the financial year 2018-19. The newly appointed leadership team will lay considerable focus on ironing out the micro issues faced by the industry such as Implementation of Interoperability of Prepaid Payments Instruments, reimbursement issues related to Debit Card MDR for transactions up to Rs.2,000, and simplification of outward remittance regulations, among others.

A veteran in the digital payments industry, Vishwas has been instrumental in driving the industry initiative of equitable distribution of Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) between acquirers and merchants. As a voice of the payments industry, he has also spoken at multiple government and industry forums highlighting the challenges faced by the net banking, debit and credit cards industry and possible recommendations to take the industry forward.

Speaking on the occasion, Vishwas Patel, Chairman, PCI, says, “I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all the members of the Payment Council of India. I am honoured and humbled that they have placed their trust in me. With their trust, I will work tirelessly on PCI’s behalf to help address challenges, and to secure lasting and meaningful solutions to all the issues faced by our payments industry. The industry has huge potential in our country and simultaneously my considerable efforts will be laid on leapfrogging the industry to great heights.”