Fino Payments Bank's compliance chief Aashish Pathak steps down

Fino Payments Bank's compliance chief Aashish Pathak steps down

01 Apr 2026, 05:16 PM

His departure adds to leadership challenges facing the payments bank, which has been under regulatory scrutiny in recent months.

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Aashish Pathak, the chief compliance officer at Fino Payments Bank, has exited the lender, just weeks after its MD and CEO was arrested under the GST law.

Pathak submitted his resignation on March 13, citing personal reasons, with his last working day falling today, per a regulatory filing with the stock exchanges.

Pathak, who oversaw the bank's compliance and regulatory functions as part of its senior management team, had joined Fino in 2023 as senior vice president after spending nearly five years at ORIX Auto Infrastructure Services.

His departure adds to leadership challenges facing the payments bank, which has been under regulatory scrutiny in recent months. In February, MD and CEO Rishi Gupta was arrested by the Hyderabad unit of the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) in connection with an alleged Rs 840 crore GST evasion case linked to online betting platforms. Investigators alleged that Gupta was involved in a network that channelled funds through shell entities and programme managers, a charge the bank has pushed back on, maintaining that the case has no bearing on its own GST compliance practices.

In the wake of Gupta's arrest, the bank elevated CFO Ketan Merchant to the role of interim CEO and put together a committee of senior executives and board members to manage daily operations.

While Gupta has since secured bail, the board has held off on formally reinstating him as CEO, saying it will take a call only after its nomination and remuneration committee reviews his 'fit and proper' status and the Reserve Bank of India weighs in even though the central bank had cleared his reappointment as recently as January before his arrest.

The upheaval also comes at a particularly sensitive time for Fino, which is navigating a strategic pivot. The RBI granted the bank in-principle approval in December to transition from a payments bank to a small finance bank.

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