Speakers
Sohini Rajola
Executive Director, Growth
National Payments Corporation Of India (NPCI)
Sohini Rajola, Executive Director – Growth, NPCI
Driving digital transformation across India's payments ecosystem, with a focus on growth, innovation, market strategy, and strategic partnerships.
As Executive Director – Growth at NPCI, Sohini is responsible for driving the growth and adoption of some of India's most widely adopted payment platforms, enhancing product offerings, expanding market reach, and enabling seamless digital payment experiences at scale. The role involves working closely with banks, fintechs, merchants, regulators, and ecosystem partners to strengthen collaboration, accelerate innovation, and support the continued evolution of India's digital payments landscape.
Bringing over two decades of leadership experience across payments and banking, spanning product innovation, go-to-market strategy, cross-border payments, digital banking, cards, customer experience, and ecosystem development. Throughout this journey, the focus has been on shaping products and platforms that address evolving customer needs, accelerating digital adoption, and fostering collaboration across financial institutions, fintechs, regulators, and global payment networks. This experience has provided a unique perspective on how technology, partnerships, and policy can come together to drive meaningful transformation at scale.
Committed to advancing financial inclusion through trusted, accessible, and future-ready payment solutions that serve consumers, businesses, and institutions alike. The focus remains on contributing to a more connected, inclusive, and resilient digital payments ecosystem for India. Previously served as Asia Pacific Regional Head at Western Union and Digital Banking & Cards Head at Axis Bank.
Speaking at SFF 2026
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4:00–4:40pmThu 19 NovPolicy StageHall 3, Singapore EXPOOpen
Technology Rewiring
The Price of Connection: What It Actually Takes to Build Cross-Border Payment Cooperation
Policy StageHall 3, Singapore EXPOOpen
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Joyce BoExecutive Vice President, Core Payments, Asia PacificMastercard
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Sohini RajolaExecutive Director, GrowthNational Payments Corporation Of India (NPCI)
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Andrew McCormackChief Executive OfficerNexus Global Payments
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Carlos ÁlvarezChief Risk Officer, Member of Executive TeamFLAR
About this session
Every institution talks about the need for interoperability but few speak honestly about what it actually costs, in regulation, in pricing, and in the multilateral negotiation it takes to connect one country's payment system to another's. This panel brings together the messaging networks, reserve-pooling mechanisms, national schemes and multilateral hubs doing this work in practice, to work through the frictions: which regulatory frameworks still block genuine interoperability, how the economics of a cross-border link actually get split between the parties that build and operate it, and what a smaller or newer market needs in place before it can plug into a bigger one.
This panel aims to present a grounded view of where multilateral payment cooperation is actually working today, what it costs to get there and dive deeper into whether the real barrier to cross-border payment connectivity is technical, regulatory or commercial. -

