Airtel Payments Bank chief quits after Aadhaar controversy

NEW DELHI: Airtel Payments Bank MD & CEO Shashi Arora has called it quits from the company after it was alleged to have surreptitiously added customers during the aadhaar verification of their mobile numbers, leading to penalty and severe censure for the telecom major.

Arora has been a veteran at the company and has spent over a decade with Airtel.

"Shashi has decided to move on to pursue opportunities outside of Airtel. We wish Shashi the very best for his future endeavours," the company - which was censured by UIDAI - said.
The addition of over 30 lakh customers to Airtel's Payments Bank has been an embarrassing episode for the telecom major after Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) sent a show-cause notice to the company, and later suspended the online aadhaar verification (eKYC) process for Airtel and its payments bank arm.

While the UIDAI has temporarily allowed Airtel to do eKYC for its customers till January 10, it has maintained the suspension of the payments bank online verification.