Kuppuswamy has almost three decades of experience in the consumer banking industry with expertise in managing portfolios across major product lines, including credit cards, mortgages, and unsecured personal loans.
She will be leading the risk portfolio across the BharatPe group of companies, including the merchant and consumer businesses, and will be working closely with the chief financial officer and interim chief executive officer Nalin Negi, to build a robust lending vertical at the firm.
In her previous stint, Kuppuswamy was the chief risk officer at SBI Cards for over 14 years, where she led a number of key projects. Under her leadership, the company’s portfolio grew by more than 20 times and she was also a part of the leadership team that took SBI Cards public.
She has also worked at Ameriprise Financial, ABN AMRO Bank and Bank of America.
“In the coming months, we will aggressively focus on building the lending business across Bharat as well as roll out a range of credit products for our merchant partners and consumers. Aparna [Kuppuswamy], with her in-depth understanding of all facets of risk strategy, credit policy and portfolio management, as well as extensive industry and product knowledge, will play a vital role in the next phase of our growth story and help us in becoming IPO-ready,” said Negi.
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Negi said Kuppuswamy’s understanding of the consumer side of financial services will help the firm build cutting-edge products that are relevant and risk aversive. “Her expertise in managing the technology risk will ensure we build highly secure products for our merchant partners and consumers,” Negi added.
Amit Jain, who is currently the chief risk officer of the firm, will be working closely with Aparna and will be investing more of his time on collections and underwriting from a merchant standpoint.
“I look forward to working with the team to build new products that will make a huge impact on millions of unbanked and underserved businesses and play a key role in making India a truly digital economy,” said Kuppuswamy.