Narayana Murthy likely to head National Payment Corporation: report

Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy is likely to head the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) as its non-executive chairman, reports quoting sources at the Indian Banks Association (IBA) said.

If things turn out so, Murthy will be the second Infosyian to join the government after top executive Nandan Nilekani resigned to head the Unique Identification Authority of India.

The IBA is functioning as the facilitator for the NPCI, which is being set up to handle retail payment operations of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Reports quoting sources said the IBA approached the Infosys founder to take over the new responsibility. Murthy, however, will not be directly involved in the operations of the corporation but will guide its board on crucial operations, the report added.

"IBA has approached Narayana Murthy to join the (NPCI) board. He has agreed to join the board," the report quoted the source as saying.
 
NPCI is being set up to segregate all retail payment activities of the central bank except the real time gross settlement (electronic) transactions.

To start with, the corporation would take over the MICR centre operations, currently run by the RBI and the SBI. Along with this, the corporation would take over clearing house operations managed by RBI, high value clearing, etc, at these centres.