Payments industry body names Rajat Jain as chief strategy officer
Payments industry association and self-regulatory body Australian Payments Network has appointed Deloitte’s national payments practice leader Rajat Jain as its new Chief Strategy Officer.
Rajat Jain is set to join the Australian Payments Network from June, where he has been appointed as the industry association’s new Chief Strategy Officer. Jain will bring almost two decades of payments experience across Australia and the Asia Pacific to his new role, having served both government and corporate clients during his career.
Admitted to the firm’s partnership last year, Jain has led Deloitte’s payments advisory practice at the national level since 2017, prior to which he served at American Express in the US, Australia and Singapore for over a decade, including as head of strategy for Australia and NZ and head of consulting and business transformation for APAC and Japan.
In his capacity as payments practice lead for Deloitte, Jain serves banking and payments clients on strategy development and execution, new payments propositions, and payments technology and operations modernisation among other areas, with for example expertise in consumer and business cards, buy-now-pay-later solutions, payments platforms and regulations, and open banking.
Earlier in his career, Jain spent four years at fellow Big Four consultancy KPMG.
“I’m joining AusPayNet at a really exciting time, with more focus on payments from government and regulators now than I have seen before in my career,” Jain said of his move. “As the payments industry’s self-regulatory body, AusPayNet is uniquely positioned to support them, having grown its membership to record levels and leading the modernisation of Australia’s payments systems.”
Jain further noted that he was leaving Deloitte on excellent terms, but was attracted by the opportunity to help shape public policy and deliver strategic industry programs over the next few years. Payments infrastructure modernisation will be among his key areas of focus, together with economic crime and implementing clear actions to combat the ever-growing threat of scams.
Established in 1992 to drive industry reform, AusPayNet’s primary aims are to promote competition and innovation, control systemic risk, and deliver efficiency through thought leadership and advocacy, industry collaboration, and system-wide standards. It has close to 150 members, made up of financial institutions, payment systems operators, technology providers, and other stakeholders.
Jain’s appointment comes at a time of significant industry shake-up, with new payment services providers entering the market and the merger of the nation’s leading domestic payment platforms – eftpos, BPAY and NPP Australia – into Australian Payments Plus to better compete with overseas multinationals.
In another high-profile hire from the consulting space, Australian Payments Plus recently named Former EY Oceania Advisory managing partner Lynn Kraus as its inaugural CEO.
