eNews
Média-Participations strengthens executive team with two new appointments
Mumbai: Média-Participations in France has strengthened the team with the appointment of Laurent Panissier as 3D general supervisor and Xavier Morelli as 2D executive producer for its audiovisual production division.
Earlier this month, the company had appointed Lila Hannou as director of development and strategy. Managing director Caroline Audebert said it was essential to strengthen and restructure the team to take on the challenges ahead of the studio. “The fact that professionals such as Laurent and Xavier have joined us, after Lila, gives me great confidence in our ability to speed up the studio’s transformation, that we started several months ago, and complete the ambitious productions that we are planning for the coming years,” she added.
A graduate of the Arts Décoratifs in multimedia and CGI in 2001, Laurent Panissier was previously associated with BUF. He worked in the special effects production team as a graphic artist as well as supervisor, alongside Pierre Buffin and his teams for 10 years. In 2011, he joined Mac Guff Lign as supervisor.
Xavier Morelli has 25 years of experience in animation production. He began his career as a production assistant in 1996 and joined Ellipse in 1998 as assistant director and production manager. In 2004, he joined Xilam Animation, as assistant director. In 2012, he directed the 3D production of the feature “The Prince” and “The 108 Demons” for Same Player Productions, before joining Futurikon in 2015 where he dealt with the production of the studio’s series. After a period at Bayard animation, he joined Cyber Group Studios as production manager. In 2019, he was production manager at Ankama animations on the feature “Princess Dragon.”
Média-Participations houses Ellipsanime Productions, Dargaud Media, Dupuis Edition and Audiovisuel and Ellipse Studio.
eNews
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.
