Shabnam Sinha to Lead Airtel Payments Bank as Sunil Mittal Steps Down

Airtel Payments Bank Ltd announced that Shabnam Sinha will become its chairperson effective Oct. 1, following a board decision and anticipated approval from the Reserve Bank of India. She will succeed Sunil Bharti Mittal, who will step down as non-executive chairman and leave the board on Sept. 30 after a decade-long tenure that began in April 2016. During Mittal’s stewardship, the bank emerged as the nation’s top payments bank by revenue, reaching more than 12.1 crore monthly active users and nearly 3 crore account holders via the Airtel Thanks app and a network of over 5 lakh banking points.

Sinha, an independent director, currently leads the board’s special committee on fraud monitoring and participates in risk-management and IT committees. She brings over thirty years of experience in development finance and has previously advised governments for the World Bank. Both executives expressed confidence that the leadership change will sustain the bank’s momentum in expanding digital financial services across urban and rural India.