Former RBI executive Shinjini Kumar expected to be CEO of Paytm's payments bank

Shinjini Kumar, former deputy general manager at Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and former director of Pricewaterhouse Cooper (PwC) is expected to be the new CEO of Paytm's soon-to-be-launched payments bank, according to a Business Standard report.

The mobile wallet service provider has been in talks with Kumar for the past few months and is said to make a formal announcement of her appointment in the first week of March.

Kumar has previously worked with RBI and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoA-ML), and is said to be a perfect fit for the company, according to a source from the company mentioned in the report.

The core team of the company comprises of more than 40 people and the company is preparing to start operations by the second half of the year.

At PwC she was in charge of the Western India regulatory practice and focused on regulations with the banking and financial services.

The payments bank Paytm will be started with an investment infusion of Rs 1,200 crore during the first 3 years.

Some of the senior executives that have already joined the company's banking business include Kshitij Sanghi who joins from McKinsey, Narendra Singh, a former BCG employee, Varun Khullar from ITC and Vikar Purohit former Amazon Vice President.

Paytm is expected to set up nearly 20 signature branches and in addition there will be 200 smaller store-like branches and at least 1,000 agents. 

Paytm was among 11 other companies including Airtel, Vodafone, Aditya Birla Group that had secured a licence from RBI in August 2015 to establish bank.