The Reserve Bank of India has approved Pratap Singh as managing director and chief executive of Fino Payments Bank for three years, giving the Mumbai-based lender a permanent leader nine months after its previous chief was arrested. The appointment takes effect on Nov. 27, or earlier if Singh takes charge before then, the bank said in a stock exchange filing on Friday, Nov. 13. It still needs shareholder approval.

For investors, the decision removes one of the larger question marks hanging over India's only publicly listed payments bank. Fino holds in-principle approval to become a small finance bank, a licence that would let it lend from its own balance sheet for the first time. RBI approval of the chief executive is required before a bank can make the appointment.

Fino Payments Bank ends interim leadership

Chief financial officer Ketan Merchant has run the bank as interim CEO since February, when the Directorate General of GST Intelligence arrested then managing director and CEO Rishi Gupta, according to a Press Trust of India report carried by Business Standard. The agency alleged that Gupta used shell companies and payment aggregators to move money generated by online money gaming. The accusations have not been proven.

Singh brings more than 29 years of banking experience in India and the United Kingdom, the bank said. He worked at ICICI Bank in India and Britain and at SBI UK, the British arm of State Bank of India, Business Standard reported. At ICICI Bank UK he was head of retail, private and SME banking for the UK and Europe from December 2018 to August 2023, according to Adgully, which cited the bank's disclosure. Adgully said he oversaw a deposit book of £1.2 billion there and cut onboarding for small business accounts from three to four months to under seven days.

His record is in deposit gathering and retail and small business lending, which is the business Fino needs to build. Business Standard said his experience includes turning mid-sized banks into franchises rich in low-cost deposits.

A loss-making quarter and a pending licence change

The new chief inherits a bank in the red. Fino reported a net loss of ₹20.9 crore for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with a net profit of ₹15.4 crore a year earlier, according to Inc42. The loss widened from ₹13.7 crore in the June quarter. Total income fell 16.6% from a year earlier to ₹333.6 crore, and fee and commission income dropped 23.8% to ₹259.2 crore.

The digital payment services unit, which brought in ₹63.4 crore a year earlier, booked no revenue in the quarter. The bank plans to relaunch it by the January to March quarter, Inc42 reported. Other lines grew. Interest income rose 24% to ₹74.5 crore, average deposits climbed 34% to ₹2,490 crore, and loans referred to partner lenders jumped 286% to ₹762 crore.

Those referrals matter for the licence change. Under India's payments bank rules, Fino can take deposits but cannot make loans, and must park its money in government securities. In December 2025 it became the first payments bank to win in-principle approval to convert into a small finance bank, Business Today reported, under conversion guidelines the RBI issued in 2025. Those rules require payments banks to be controlled by Indian residents and to have at least five years of operations, which shuts out the corporate-owned payments banks linked to groups such as Airtel and Jio, according to the magazine.

Inc42 described the loan referral business as a pilot for the proposed small finance bank. The bank has brought in senior leaders for branch banking, liabilities, small business lending and credit risk, the outlet said. No date for the conversion has been announced.

What investors in India's bank sector will watch

Indian lenders are being judged on deposit growth this year, with loans rising faster than deposits across the system, as Capital Times reported in its look at bank credit outpacing deposits. A small finance bank built on a large base of low-balance savings accounts could have a funding edge if it can price loans well. Fino counted 19.1 crore current and savings accounts at the end of September, up 20% from a year earlier, according to Inc42.

Fino's shares closed at ₹123.05 on the BSE in the session after the results, Inc42 reported. Founded in 2006 as a payments technology company, Fino became the first profitable payments bank in 2020 and listed in 2021, according to Business Today.

The next steps are procedural but concrete: the shareholder vote on Singh's appointment, his start date of Nov. 27, and the bank's December quarter results, which will show whether the digital payments unit is back on track for its planned relaunch.