PayU India Chief Now Payments Provider Pine Labs CEO

Amrish Rau, former PayU India head, has joined payment solutions provider Pine Labs as its new chief executive officer, according to Deal Street Asia.

Rau is replacing outgoing CEO Vicky Bindra. After a two-year run on the job, Bindra decided to move back to San Francisco, although he will continue as an advisor for the company and support “strategic initiatives,” the company said Tuesday (March 3).

Rau comes into the fold boasting more than two decades of experience in FinTech. His resume includes co-founding Citrus Payment Solutions, which PayU India later acquired for $130 million in an all-cash deal in September 2016. Citrus Pay was funded by Sequoia India and was one of the country’s largest FinTech brands.

After the acquisition, Rau began serving as PayU’s CEO in India. He held that job from 2016 through 2019.

Rau also worked as managing director for financial services firm First Data Asia, where he focused on a payments joint venture with ICICI Bank. He’s also worked with Siemens Nixdorf and U.S.-based payment hardware retailer NCR Corporation.

Rau’s hiring comes as Pine Labs is attempting to attain “unicorn” status, or a $1 billion valuation, holding talks with investors and trying to raise more money.

In other Pine Labs news, Mastercard announced an investment and new partnership with merchant commerce platform to boost its buy now, pay later (BNPL) push.

Pine Labs, which started as an offline retail payment provider in 1998, has since evolved to become a payment acceptance, stored value and in-store customer credit company that enables consumers to opt into installment payments plans online or at the point of sale in a physical store.

The firm processes about $30 billion a year and works with 140,000 merchants through 450,000 global card network acceptance endpoints, mostly in India, with some penetration into the Middle East and Southeast Asia.