Brands
BuyBuyCart launches smart vending machines in retail push
Firm plans up to 400 automated units across high footfall locations
NEW DELHI: BuyBuyCart is betting on convenience at the tap of a screen with the launch of its smart vending machines, marking its entry into India’s fast-evolving automated retail space.
Designed for speed and simplicity, the machines aim to bring everyday essentials closer to consumers who are increasingly short on time but high on expectations. From packaged snacks and beverages to ready-to-eat meals, personal care items and even healthier options like makhanas and dry fruits, the offering is built around daily needs with a dash of impulse buying.
Each unit comes equipped with an interactive touchscreen and supports multiple payment modes, including upi, qr code scanning, debit and credit cards, and digital wallets, making the entire purchase journey quick and contactless.
Founder Ashish Pandey said the move reflects a broader shift in consumer behaviour. “Convenience, speed and accessibility are now central to retail. Our vending machines are designed to deliver essentials round the clock while strengthening a technology-led retail ecosystem,” he noted.
The company plans to roll out between 300 and 400 machines in the first phase, targeting high footfall locations such as offices, IT parks, colleges, hospitals, fuel stations and residential complexes. It is also exploring partnerships with educational institutions to deepen its reach.
Beyond convenience, the machines double up as miniature storefronts for brands, offering a new channel for product visibility and promotions.
To scale operations, BuyBuyCart will adopt both FOCO and COCO models, allowing entrepreneurs to plug into the network while the company retains operational control in select locations.
As urban lifestyles grow busier, retail is quietly stepping out of stores and into corridors, campuses and corners, one vending machine at a time.
Brands
YES Bank appoints S Anantharaman as chief risk officer
Former Jio Financial Services group chief risk officer takes charge of enterprise-wide risk at the embattled private lender
MUMBAI: YES Bank is not taking chances with risk anymore. The private lender has appointed S Anantharaman as its chief risk officer, a hire that signals the bank’s continued effort to rebuild credibility and tighten the controls that once famously slipped.
Anantharaman arrives from Jio Financial Services, where he served as group chief risk officer and built a risk management architecture spanning lending, payments, insurance broking and asset management from the ground up. Before that, he held the chief risk officer role at Bank of Baroda and senior leadership positions at HDFC Bank and L&T Finance Holdings. Three decades in banking and financial services, in other words, with scars and qualifications to match. He is a chartered accountant and a CFA charterholder.
At YES Bank, his brief is considerable. Anantharaman will oversee the bank’s entire enterprise-wide risk framework, covering credit policy, market risk, operational risk, information security, data governance, analytics, model governance and data privacy. It is, in short, every lever that matters when a bank is trying to prove it has grown up.
YES Bank’s turbulent past needs little rehearsing. What it needs now is exactly what Anantharaman has spent thirty years building: the kind of risk culture that stops problems before they become headlines. The appointment suggests the bank knows it.
