The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) raised ₹81.64 crore worth of equity capital from 19 new investors for a total stake of 4.63% in the umbrella retail payments organisation, it said in a press release. In September this year, the NPCI's board of directors decided to raise fresh equity and broaden its investor base by offering to sell equity shares to 131 new entities. However, only 19 of these new investors have bought the shares on offer through a private placement route, the NPCI said. “We are extremely pleased with the outcome of this exercise and the confidence expressed in NPCI’s continued growth and larger purpose. With this we have also broad based our shareholding to include new categories like Payment Banks, Small Finance Banks and Payment System Operators in addition to existing Public Sector, Private Sector, Foreign, Co Operative and Regional Rural Banks” said Rupesh H Acharya, Chief of Finance, NPCI in a statement. With the 19 new shareholders, NPCI now has a total of 67 shareholder entities which include commercial banks, cooperative banks, foreign banks, payments banks, small finance banks as well as several payments companies (full list available here). The new shareholding pattern as of November 26, is as follows: The top ten banks hold a 78.31% stake in the NPCI, which include Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Citibank, HSBC Ltd among others. Around 2.5% of the NPCI's shareholding is held by payments…
