# Manish Khera

Manish Khera is an Indian banker and businessman. He worked at ICICI Bank from 1993 to 2005 before founding FINO Pay-tech in 2006.
Khera invested in YTS Solutions, a banking company focused on individuals without active bank accounts in India. In 2014, he applied to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a small finance bank license. In 2015, he became the CEO of Airtel Money Services Limited, which was later renamed Airtel Payments Bank.
In 2011, Khera was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Khera is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Inclusion Network and Operations (FINO) Pay-tech. The World Economic Forum honoured FINO with a Technology Pioneer Award in 2011.

## Education

Khera is an Electrical Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering (then a constituent college of the University of Delhi, now the Delhi Technological University), having a Master's Degree in Business Administration (Finance) from the Faculty of Management Studies, the University of Delhi, along with an M.Phil. in Environment and Development from the University of Cambridge in the U.K. He is also a Department for International Development scholar.

## Career
### Years with ICICI Bank (1993–2006)

In 2004, after gaining experience in corporate and structured lending, and transaction banking and banking technology, Manish set up the Alternate Channels Group (ACG) within ICICI Bank to serve the need and opportunity of offering banking services to the banking-deprived in India. ACG's objective was to find unconventional and alternate channels to provide banking services to the unserved segment.
During this period, he also worked with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to get the Business Correspondent guidelines issued working with the Khan Committee, which gave recommendations for this pioneering change of financial inclusion initiative in India.
At the Alternate Channels Group, Khera designed a system that leveraged biometric paperless technology and no physical infrastructure to reach the unserved and underbanked population in India. That laid the foundation for Financial Information Network and Operations Ltd. (FINO), which was later renamed FINO Paytech.

### Years with FINO Paytech Limited (2005–2013)

FINO Paytech Ltd. was founded in 2006 by Manish Khera. He was Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the company.
In 2006, Khera combined low-cost innovation aligned with customer ability and skill sets, the lack of infrastructure in India and the radical move by RBI to permit Business Correspondents to solicit and service customers, to successfully deliver banking services for the micro-segment (below poverty line population) along with business profitability. This endeavour has been one of the most appreciated success stories in the micro segment category. His thought and innovative approach to the business has encouraged other players in the field to come up and create value chains for their customers of the same segment. Under his leadership, FINO grew to service over 70 million customers across more than 50,000 Business Correspondent points, making it the largest globally. FINO has now become FINO Payments Bank.
Khera quit FINO in 2013.

### Years with YTS – Yatra Tatra Sarvatra and Acquisition by Bharti Airtel (2014–2015)

In 2014, Manish Khera invested in Yatra Tatra Sarvatra (YTS), a financial services company focused on mobile banking solutions. YTS provided a platform that enabled migrant customers to remit money instantly across India at a low cost and conduct banking transactions using basic mobile phones.
In 2015, Bharti Airtel acquired YTS as part of its expansion into the digital payments sector. Following the acquisition, Manish Khera was appointed as the CEO of Airtel Money, Airtel’s digital payments arm, to lead its growth in the financial services space.
Manish Khera was an applicant of the Small Finance Bank under RBI guidelines along with 72 others, though his application was not successful.

### Years with Happy and ArthImpact (2017 - Present)

After his tenure at Airtel Money, Manish Khera founded ArthImpact in December 2016 , a platform designed to provide digital financial services to underserved communities. ArthImpact focused on offering microloans and financial products to small businesses, particularly in rural areas.
Then in 2017, Khera also established Happy, a digital lending platform focused on providing microloans to small businesses. The platform utilized artificial intelligence and data analytics to assess creditworthiness. Happy aimed to improve access to credit for underserved segments, supporting financial inclusion through technology-driven lending. Khera’s experience in digital banking and financial services contributed to the development of the platform’s approach to alternative credit assessment.
Khera's work through ArthImpact and Happy aimed to bridge the gap in financial services for individuals and businesses that were typically excluded from traditional banking systems.

## Awards and recognition

Khera has received praise for his role as one of the thought leaders in the financial inclusion and micro-finance space in India.
He has been honoured and recognized as "Young Global Leader of 2011" by World Economic Forum.
Khera has also been recognized by E&Y as the "Entrepreneur of the Year 2011" and has been awarded the Forbes India Leadership award 2012 for the "Outstanding Start-Up".