Citizens Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: CFG) today announced the appointment of Radha Suvarna as Head of Enterprise Payments Innovation and Strategy, effective Feb. 4, 2021. A 22-year Citibank veteran, Suvarna will lead Citizens’ payments strategy with a focus on delivering a best-in-class customer experience by accelerating the bank’s enterprise-wide payments capabilities. Suvarna will report to Beth Johnson, Chief Experience Officer of Citizens.
Suvarna most recently served as Head of Digital Payments and Lending for Citi’s U.S. Consumer Bank, where he launched a digital product management function that drove key revenue growth and completed expense reduction initiatives for the Credit Card and Retail Businesses. As Head of Digital Payments for Citi’s Global Consumer Bank, he drove the partnerships and launch of PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung and Zelle while also driving the test and learn for new concepts such as Citi Pay.
“The payments sector is experiencing tremendous change and innovation and, with his experience, Radha will help us develop a customer-oriented, unified payments vision and strategy for the bank with an emphasis on real time and emerging payments,” said Johnson. “He will regularly assess market opportunities, competitive offerings and customer needs to ensure we have a clear view of opportunities for the bank to differentiate itself. His extensive work in digital product management, innovative product development and business management experience in credit cards, unsecured loans, payments and data analytics will serve him well in this newly created role.”
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Citizens partners with Zelle for person-to-person payments and was one of the first financial institutions to begin using the real-time payments rail developed by The Clearing House (TCH) to offer customers faster payments. A strong collaboration with FIS WorldPay, one of the world’s largest and best-known merchant processors, and direct merchant relationships with some of the world’s most recognizable brands for point-of-sale (POS) financing have helped position Citizens as an innovator in the payments space.
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