Phaneendra Kumar is a technology leader with over two decades of senior experience in global banking and financial services. He began his international career as a Technology Consultant at Barclays Bank, London, where he spent approximately seven years working on enterprise-grade banking platforms, regulatory technology systems, and cross-border payment infrastructure. This period gave him deep exposure to how world-class financial institutions approach fraud detection, compliance, and risk management at scale.
He subsequently spent sixteen years at Bank of America, rising to the level of Senior Vice President. In this role, he led large-scale technology programmes spanning digital banking, fraud risk systems, regulatory reporting, and enterprise platform modernisation. Working at SVP level in one of the world's largest banks gave him a frontline view of how financial crime evolves — and, critically, how slow institutional responses allow criminals to stay ahead of victims.
Returning to India, Phaneendra recognised a stark contrast: while global banks had sophisticated fraud response infrastructure, Indian citizens — especially those in regional-language communities — had virtually no real-time defence against the rising tide of cybercrime. The 1930 helpline existed, but victims had to call, explain, wait. Meanwhile, scammers moved money across mule accounts and out of India within minutes.
He founded DigiKavach Technologies Pvt. Ltd. to close that gap — building an AI-powered platform that acts in seconds, files complaints automatically, requests bank freezes in the Golden Hour, and generates court-ready evidence in the language the victim actually speaks. DigiKavach today partners with the Karnataka Police Cyber Wing, I4C under the Ministry of Home Affairs, CERT-In, NPCI, and TRAI. Phaneendra also leads other ventures in healthcare technology (VitalEdge), logistics (WareLink India), and revenue cycle management (ClaimIQ) — all under the same philosophy: use technology to solve problems that matter for ordinary Indians.
