Bengaluru-based fintech unicorn Razorpay today announced the reappointment of Arif Khan as its chief innovation officer (CIO). 

A veteran in the banking and financial services industry, Khan brings his expertise in working with various stakeholders and an in-depth understanding of the sector spanning over two decades. He has held leadership positions in reputed organisations such as National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), MasterCard, HDFC Bank, among others. 

Khan’s appointment comes at a time when Razorpay has entered the offline payments space with its recent acquisition of one of India’s leading point-of-sale payments startups, Ezetap. His role will be crucial in standardising operations, improving efficiency, and expanding Razorpay’s solutions suite for the offline payment landscape too.

Prior to joining Razorpay again, Khan served as the chief digital officer at NPCI, where he led strategic planning pertaining to digital transformation for the organisation. 

During his first stint at Razorpay from 2017 to 2019, he led several key initiatives and contributed to building a holistic business architecture for the company. Further, he was instrumental in building the foundation for Razorpay’s banking services and established strong external stakeholder relationships.  Prior to Razorpay, Khan served as the senior business leader at Mastercard where he was responsible for driving growth for the company’s payment gateway platform and Mastercard’s ‘Simplify Commerce’. 

Welcoming Khan back to the company, Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder at Razorpay, said, “During his previous stint with us, he played a crucial role in establishing several foundational pillars of our Banking capabilities and nurtured strong relations with various external stakeholders. We are confident that his experience of working with leading financial institutions and especially his ability to influence diverse groups to deliver end-objectives will help Razorpay in furthering its vision of building the financial backbone for small businesses in India.” 

In his second tenure as the CIO of Razorpay, Khan will lead the banking, risk management, regulatory affairs, and public policy teams toward the larger organisational vision of fine-tuning Razorpay’s offerings in the digital payments space. 

He will be playing a key role in leading engagement with banks, networks, regulators, and strategic partners to drive innovation at Razorpay and will be responsible for accelerating the adoption of new payment and banking platforms and products.

“The financial landscape has seen a monumental change in the last couple of years. Supported by regulations, the Indian digital payments industry is growing tremendously and is set to triple to $10 trillion by 2026. Razorpay has spearheaded several innovations with its cutting-edge solutions and I believe this story of innovation and disruption is going to continue and grow stronger. I am committed and look forward to contributing to Razorpay’s goal towards addressing all things payments and banking for businesses and I am excited to be a part of the Razorpay story again,” said Khan.

With an $80 billion TPV as of April 2022, the company is now eyeing a 10-12 million merchant base by next year. 

Established in 2014, the company provides technology payment solutions to over 8 million businesses. Founded by alumni of IIT Roorkee, Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur, Razorpay is the second Indian company to be a part of Silicon Valley’s largest tech accelerator, Y Combinator. Marquee investors such as Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, TCV, GIC, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Y Combinator and MasterCard have invested a total of $741.5 million through Series A, B, C, D, E and F funding.