Brands
Bharti AXA Life Insurance ropes in Vidya Balan as brand ambassador
Mumbai: Bharti AXA Life Insurance, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and AXA insurance on Tuesday announced that it has roped in Bollywood actor Vidya Balan as its brand ambassador.
The National Award-winning actor embodies the core values of Bharti AXA Life Insurance and will help deepen the narrative of #DoTheSmartThing championed by the brand, stated the company.
“Vidya Balan has been a challenger in her field, expressing herself authentically and has always questioned stereotypes,” said Bharti AXA Life Insurance MD and CEO Parag Raja. “She has excelled in bringing compelling and unique narratives to life on screen and is self-made, reliant, and audacious- values that strongly resonate with Bharti AXA Life as a brand. We believe in long-term relationships and are excited to bring Vidya on board to further our goal of broadening life insurance penetration across India.”
Speaking on the association, Vidya Balan said, “Bharti AXA has always been committed to simplifying insurance and empowering Indians to making smarter and savvier financial choices. I am extremely excited to represent the brand and help them further their manifesto of #DoTheSmartThing. It is heartening to see how the company has raised the bar of serving customers and constantly advocates for securing their financial futures. I look forward to the association and kicking off our engagement.”
Bharti AXA Life had announced a new brand purpose last year, which centres on making insurance simple for customers in a complicated world.
“We are excited to bring Vidya on board and look forward to an enriching partnership with her. We believe that our association will help us strengthen awareness around the category and build a more meaningful and purpose-driven connect with our customers,” commented Bharti AXA Life Insurance head of marketing Geetanjali Kothari.
Over the past year, Bharti AXA Life Insurance has made strategic investments in digital platforms to enhance customer experience and facilitate seamless services. The company plans to expand on the back of strategic partnerships and by increasing its distribution footprints across the country.
Brands
Rakesh Menon joins Paytm as avp – lending
Fintech product leader takes on new role after building digital lending, payments and credit products across fintech ecosystem
MUMBAI: Rakesh Menon has joined Paytm as assistant vice president – lending, taking on a new role focused on strengthening the company’s lending and credit products.
Prior to this, Menon worked at Profectus Capital Pvt Ltd as chief manager – payments based financing and digital lending.
At Profectus, he designed and launched digital credit products for merchants with variable cash flows, including overdraft-linked and revenue-share lending models. He led end-to-end LOS–LMS API integrations with payment partners and aggregators, enabling real-time underwriting, disbursal and repayment workflows.
He also worked on funnel optimisation initiatives using journey analytics, improving onboarding, KYC and disbursal conversion by 35 per cent. He developed ecosystem partnerships for transaction-data-based credit assessment and automated settlement systems, and collaborated with credit and data science teams to strengthen risk models and early delinquency detection.
Menon standardised partner onboarding and API frameworks, reducing go-live timelines by 40 per cent and improving digital scalability.
Before Profectus Capital, he worked at PayU as senior manager – presales lead – enterprise business from August 2022 to August 2023. He set up a national presales function for fintech and digital commerce clients, aligning solutions such as EMI, BNPL, BBPS and offer engines to merchant requirements.
He also helped improve conversion rates by around 15 per cent through merchant persona mapping, demo frameworks and structured sales playbooks, working closely with product and go-to-market teams.
From April 2019 to July 2022, Menon served as business unit head – SMB – direct acquisitions at Worldline, where he built the SMB online payments vertical from scratch. The business scaled to Rs 2,500 crore in annual transaction volume, growing at 45 per cent year-on-year.
During this period, he introduced paperless onboarding processes including eKYC and eSign, developed partner dashboards and CRM automation systems, and integrated platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Tally to expand merchant adoption.
Across roles, Menon has worked across digital lending, payments and merchant financing, with experience in product development, ecosystem partnerships, API integrations and fintech-led growth strategies.
At Paytm, he will focus on scaling lending products and strengthening digital credit infrastructure within the company’s financial services ecosystem.
His appointment comes as fintech firms continue to expand their lending and embedded finance offerings in a competitive market.
