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Business Today Banking & Economy Summit and BT Best Banks Awards celebrates the theme, Indian Banking: Bigger. Bolder. Boundless
Mumbai: The prestigious annual Business Today Banking & Economy Summit and BT Best Banks Awards will be held in Gandhinagar’s GIFT City on Friday, 22 March 2024. The theme for the event this year is ‘Indian Banking: Bigger. Bolder. Boundless,’ and it will feature an impressive line-up of influential figures, thought leaders, and experts from the financial industry who will deliberate on pressing issues such as the state of the Indian economy, the modern financial lending landscape, and a blueprint for a global financial hotspot, among others.
Union minister for road transport & highways Nitin Gadkari is the chief guest at the event, while chief minister of Gujarat Bhupendra Patel is the guest of honour. Industry stalwarts such as HDFC Bank MD & CEO Sashidhar Jagdishan will also attend. The line-up for the summit includes names such as the 16th Finance Commission of India chairman Dr Arvind Panagariya; NSE MD & CEO – Ashishkumar Chauhan; J P Morgan senior country officer India and vice chairman Asia Pacific Kaustubh Kulkarni; Ujjivan Small Finance Bank MD & CEO Ittira Davis; The Karur Vysya Bank, MD & CEO – B. Ramesh Babu; Tata Capital digital head Shallu Kaushik; Lendingkart co-founder & CEO Harshvardhan Lunia; Perfios Software Solutions CEO Sabyasachi Goswami; Bank of Maharashtra ED Asheesh Pandey; KPMG in India, partner and head – financial services advisory – Sanjay Doshi; International Financial Services Centres Authority, chairperson Kalyanaraman Rajaraman GMDC, MD – Roopwant Singh; author, speaker, and influencer – Chetan Bhagat.
A special issue of Business Today on India’s Best Banks will be released at the event, followed by the highly anticipated presentation ceremony of the BT Best Banks Awards. The 28th edition of the BT-KPMG Best Banks and NBFCs Survey identified those institutions that weathered all storms in 2022-23, innovated both in products and services, nurtured talent and leveraged the strengths of fintech or technology partners to prepare for the future. There are 16 award categories across banking, NBFCs, and the fintech space. While six of them are quantitative awards based on a rigorous evaluation of the financial performance of banks and NBFCs for FY23, the other 10 categories were decided by a high-profile jury headed by Anand Kumar Sinha, former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India. The other members of the jury were NSE, MD & CEO – Ashishkumar Chauhan; Avendus co-founder & executive vice chairman Ranu Vohra; Arcil MD & CEO Pallav Mohapatra; ICICI Bank former ED N.S. Kannan; and CMS Info Systems executive vice chairman & CEO Rajiv Kaul.
Amidst global economic challenges marked by high volatility in the financial markets, disruptions in supply chains, and inflationary pressures, the Indian economy stands resilient, albeit not immune. The Business Today Banking & Economy Summit aims to address the key trends and issues shaping the banking and financial sector, providing a platform for policymakers, regulators, industry executives, and innovators to exchange ideas and chart the course forward.
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PNB partners Kiwi to launch credit-enabled UPI for users
Targets 180 million customers; RuPay card offers 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent cashback
MUMBAI: Swipe, tap, or scan credit is quietly slipping into the rhythm of everyday payments, and Punjab National Bank wants in on the action. The state-run lender has partnered with Kiwi to roll out credit-enabled UPI payments for its 180 million customers, marking a significant push to blend traditional banking with India’s fast-evolving digital payments ecosystem.
At the centre of the collaboration is the launch of the PNB Kiwi Credit Card on the RuPay network. The card is designed with a digital-first approach, offering fully online onboarding and seamless integration with UPI, allowing users to transact via scan-and-pay while accessing credit.
The offering also brings in a rewards layer, with cashback ranging from 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent on online transactions, positioning the product as both a convenience play and a spending incentive.
The move comes as UPI continues to dominate India’s digital payments landscape, increasingly blurring the lines between debit-led transactions and credit access. For PNB, which operates over 10,000 branches around 60 per cent in semi-urban and rural areas, the partnership signals a targeted effort to extend formal credit to segments that have traditionally remained underserved.
The collaboration also reflects a broader industry shift, where banks and fintech platforms are converging to embed credit directly into payment flows, reducing friction while expanding access.
With RuPay credit cards gaining traction and UPI evolving beyond peer-to-peer transfers, the PNB–Kiwi tie-up positions both players at the intersection of scale, accessibility, and the next phase of digital finance in India.
