Rahul is a seasoned global financial services executive with 21+ years of business leadership & advisory experience with international organisations like The World Bank and Swift, global banks, fintechs, consulting firms and think-tanks. He has led complex multi-market financial sector community initiatives from strategy to live services, that involved extensive public-private coordination and strategic relationship management with international bodies, government agencies, central banks, regulators, payment market infrastructures, banks and fintechs. He has managed geographically & culturally diverse, cross-functional teams globally and is a recognised payments expert, trainer, facilitator, speaker and thought leader in key industry & regulatory forums including Sibos, Global Payment Summit, World Bank Global Payments Week, Central Bank Payments Conference, Money 2020, World Economic Forum, India’s Global Fintech Festival and Singapore Fintech Festival.

He is currently engaged in strategic advisory roles with the World Bank, supporting G20 agenda alignment in close coordination with central banks in emerging markets, and has established Avivate, a management consultancy firm focused on payments & banking advisory. He is a Board Advisor plus Singapore Hub & Chapter Lead for AI2030 - a global think tank driving and driving responsible AI agenda in the wider APAC region. He is also helping drive various policy advocacy initiatives as an Ambassador for the Emerging Payments Association Asia (EPAA).
Previously he was the Global Head of Payments Market Infrastructure (PMI) Strategy at SWIFT, where he led global payments capability development & strategic innovation initiatives, helping streamlining domestic, cross-border & emerging forms of money movement. He was instrumental in launching next generation payment solutions in a collaborative and consultative manner, including the cross-border instant payments, domestic instant payments, CBDCs, and leading Swift engagements with the G20 program & associated international agencies like BIS, CPMI and FSB. As designated business lead for key innovation projects he helped explore new business models & technologies with the global community, including use of tokenisation, DLT, AI, cloud, open data, open APIs and new settlement models via CBDCs, stablecoins, wallets, real-time payment linking, ISO 20022 etc.

Prior to SWIFT, he led regional banking and payments portfolios across APAC and middle east with leading technology firms like NTT Data, CSC and FIS, consulting firms like Accenture and global institutions like ICICI Bank and RBS (Dubai). He has an MBA in Information Systems & Marketing.