eNews
Serial entrepreneur Srikant Sastri to mentor digital news venture Nyoooz.com
NEW DELHI: In an age when most established news organisations, including the new-kid-on-the-block Republic TV, have digital news portals to augment reach, one of the first few to get into this space, news media veteran Alok Verma and his Nyoooz.com have roped in serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Singapore-based big data company Crayon Data Srikant Sastri as a mentor.
Sastri, who has also joined the board of Newzstreet Media Private Limited, parent of Nyoooz.com, will help the company sharpen its focus on micro-revenue opportunities and a methodology to deliver value to its clients.
Apart from Sastri, Raja Shukla has joined Nyoooz.com as the national sales head. Raja, an accomplished media sales professional, will drive the digital sales and content-led sales both at the national and city levels. His earlier stints had been in organisations like Gram Vani, Zee Media, The Indian Express group and The Times of India group.
Commenting on the new leadership team, Nyoooz.com founder and editor-in-chief Verma said, “Srikant Sastri will help Nyoooz.com to focus on quantitative and qualitative improvisations in the way local news content is generated and served using technological innovations and will mentor not only the team, but also me, while Raja’s presence will add more zing to our sales as we look to consolidate our core base and also explore spreading wings.”
One of the early entrants into the digital space, Nyoooz.com serves contextual and relevant local news for and from tier II and tier III cities in India with a primary focus on Northern India. Presently, the company serves and covers news of and from about 70 cities and has an audience reach of 3.5 million in text news and 6 million in video news, including latest blockbuster the IPL 2017 cricket matches.
Verma, a journalist of over 30-year standing, has held senior news management positions, including that of the editor, in media groups such as TV Today Network, Zee Media and Star India. The entrepreneurship bug bit him when he sensed the importance of the digital space.
Nyoooz.com curates all important news stories of target cities from trustworthy and competent publishers from across the web. It uses its TrueView algorithm’s to scan and fetch news published about 70 individual cities across India. Subscribers can customize their unique news feed after registering to gather news from the cities they love.
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.
