Singapore, 10 January 2008 | For Immediate Release
Singapore’s leading electronic payments provider, NETS, has appointed Ms Suman Balani to its newly created position of Assistant Chief Executive. In this new position, Ms Balani will assume overall responsibility for all Consumer Products in NETS and will play an instrumental role in strategic reviews of businesses and setting key long range strategic direction for the company.

Prior to this appointment, Ms Balani was the Chief of Strategy and Development, where she was in charge of strategic corporate/business planning, new business opportunities and projects, as well as overall branding, communication & marketing strategies.

Ms Balani possesses a wealth of experience in the electronic payments services industry. She joined the company as General Manager of NETS Payment, Cards and Value-Added Services. In that position, she was responsible for the expansion of NETS’ Electronic Fund Transfer at Point Of Sale (EFTPOS) and CashCard businesses. Under her leadership, she successfully initiated several key programmes on a nationwide basis and grew NETS services beyond traditional markets.

NETS CEO Poh Mui Hoon said of the latest appointment: “NETS has been growing from strength to strength over the years. Our vision remains focused on being a leader in the area of electronic payments and online transaction processing. We will continue to build the management bench strength necessary to help us grow the domestic and regional business so as to reach our goals. This move is in line with our philosophy of grooming our talents from within the organisation to assume greater responsibilities. We believe Ms Balani has the right experience to help NETS scale to the next wave of growth."

On her promotion to Assistant Chief Executive, Ms Balani said: “The aim is to strive alongside the executive management team to firmly establish NETS as the integrated payment gateway for Asia. Our overall goal is to continue to provide smart and savvy services to all our partners and consumers.”

Ms Balani was previously with SESAMi Inc, where she served in the position of Director of Business Development and was later promoted to Vice President, Strategic Marketing and Alliances. During her stint at SESAMi Inc, Suman oversaw strategic investments, product marketing, alliance management and corporate development for the business throughout Asia. She was the prime driver of a successful merger between SESAMi.com and Asia2B, a Hong Kong-based company, forming one of the largest e-commerce service providers in Asia.

Ms Balani graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Science (Information Systems / Information Technology) and is an alumna of Raffles Girls' School. She also attended the Stanford-NUS Executive MBA programme and was a recipient of the Asian Computer Services Scholarship.