S Ganesh Kumar

Independent Director at IDFC FIRST Bank

Mr. S Ganesh Kumar was the Executive Director of the Reserve Bank of India. While the most recent responsibilities included the entire gamut of Payment and Settlement Systems, creation and development of strategic plans for the Bank and to take care of the external investments and manage the foreign exchange reserves with the central bank, a long period in the Information Technology area has honed skills in this area of specialisation.

Mr. Kumar is a post graduate in Management having experience in varied fields such as marketing, market research, banking, finance, law, and Information Technology. He was with the Reserve Bank of India for more than three decades. He was also associated with the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology - the IT institute for the Banking sector, facilitating in training and new service offerings stemming out of Research activities of the Institute. He was the nominee of the Reserve Bank of India on the Committee for Payment and Settlement Systems in Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Basel, Switzerland, as also the co-chair of the Financial Innovation Network (FIN) of the Financial Stability Board of the BIS.

Mr. Kumar was the RBI Nominee Director on the Board of a medium Public Sector Bank and part of a few of its Sub Committees for about five years.

He was also associated with the National Cyber Security Council of the Government of India, and in the framing of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act of the country.

Mr. Kumar had a role to play in ideating, design, development of innovative, technology based retail payment systems for India, including some of the payment systems now being operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI); in the framework for data related standards, storage and reusability apar from facilitating the setting up of the Reserve Bank Information Technology Limited (ReBIT), a ‘first-of-its-kind’ IT subsidiary for a central bank, for assisting the central bank in cyber security related matters in a focused manner, provide cyber security assistance and advice and assess cyber security of regulated entities both through onsite and offsite means.

Timeline

  • Independent Director

    Current role