Paytm has received the final approval from The Reserve Bank of India for its payments bank and it expects to start the operations in February this year. The payments bank can accept payments and deposits of upto INR 100,000 from individuals and small businesses.
In a blog post, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and CEO One97 Communications stated that RBI has given the final approval to Paytm to launch the payments bank and the team expects to roll out the first phase as early as in February this year. He further added that it’s indeed a great pleasure and excitement for him to launch the payments bank and that he will be involved in day-today operations of the payments bank with a full time executive role. The main aim according to him would be to get banking services in reach to thousands of unserved and underserved Indians. Paytm looks forward to create a new business model which could benefit both, the company and the customers.
Paytm was first expected to launch its formal operations around Diwali last year, however, plans got delayed and finally we have some confirmation on that front. Paytm along with 10 others had got in-principle approval from RBI last year to launch payments bank, later, 3 of the applicants, Tech Mahindra, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company and a group of Dilip Shanghvi, IDFC Bank and Telenor Financial Services backed out of the race and returned their license to RBI.
Out of the companies which had got RBI approval to launch payments bank, Airtel is the only one with ongoing payments bank operations. Aditya Birla Group is also expected to launch its payments bank by the first half of ongoing year.
Once the payments bank by Paytm goes live, Vijay Shekhar Sharma will hold a majority stake and rest will be owned by One97 Communications. The company had recently restructured its business model when it had merged the payment wallet business with payments bank.