Brands
Milk, money and sixes: Amul and Nandini eye RCB during IPL 2026
BENGALURU: From breakfast tables to boundary ropes, India’s milk war is getting frothy. Fresh off their IPL 2025 triumph, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) are set to become the hottest property in town — and the prize cow in a high-stakes sponsorship tussle between Amul and Nandini ahead of the 2026 season.
According to Moneycontrol, the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF), which sells dairy under the Nandini brand, is exploring a title sponsorship and partnership with RCB for IPL 2026, taking direct aim at rival Amul, which was associated with the franchise last season. Call it full-cream competition.
KMF has floated a tender to appoint an IPL-authorised agency to broker Nandini’s entry as an official RCB partner. The shopping list is lavish: use of the RCB name, logo and trademarks on packaging, advertising and public relations campaigns through the IPL window. Stadium kiosks at RCB’s home games are also on the menu, turning matchdays into milk runs.
Digital is central to the churn. Nandini plans to milk RCB’s players and logo across Instagram, X and Facebook, backed by outdoor hoardings and large-format media. KMF managing director B Shivaswamy, believes the logic is local and emotional: RCB represents Karnataka. He added that KMF is keen to rope in Virat Kohli and two other RCB players for promotional campaigns.
The bigger ambition is national. The IPL’s megaphone will be used to push Nandini deeper into Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai, markets where Amul has long enjoyed pole position. An additional tender for digital gantry advertising at Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, underlines the federation’s intent to blanket eyeballs, from arrivals halls to boundary lines.
KMF has been steadily bulking up its sports-marketing muscle. It sponsored Scotland and Ireland at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, and has tied up with teams in the Pro Kabaddi League and the Indian Super League. Cricket, though, remains the fattest cow.
The dairy duel has political undertones too. Ahead of the 2023 Karnataka elections, Amul’s entry into Bengaluru sparked a storm, with fears it would dent the local cooperative and its army of farmers. KMF, which counts 24 lakh milk producers, procures 8.4 million litres daily and reported a turnover of nearly Rs 19,800 crore in 2021–22, is not short of heft. Amul, however, remains the heavyweight, clocking a provisional Rs 55,055 crore in 2022–23.
RCB, meanwhile, can sit back and enjoy the bidding war. When milk brands start throwing elbows over a cricket team, you know the IPL has truly entered its richest innings. The cows are restless — and the stakes are rising.
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.
