Paytm, India’s largest digital payment platform has asked for minimum Know Your Customer (KYC) wallets of users to remain operational even after August 31, when the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) mandatory full KYC requirements for mobile wallets kick in, reported ET.
Minimum KYC wallets are ones where a customer’s mobile number gets authenticated and the operator collects just one government identification number, without cross checks.
“I believe the idea around the expiry date for minimum KYC wallets is a flawed one; as long as users are comfortable with limitations in such wallets, they should be allowed to operate,” Deepak Abbot, senior vice-president, Paytm said.
Paytm has made representations to the RBI and discussed the issue with the Nandan Nilekani-led Committee on Deepening of Digital Payments, a top executive of the digital payments company said.
Based out of Noida, Paytm was founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma with an aim to bring an ease in the digital payments ecosystem across India.
The payments giant has also requested that peer-to-peer payments be allowed for minimum KYC wallets. Since wallet-to-wallet payments remain within the banking circle, the risk of frauds is minimised.
“To do physical KYC, the cost varies between Rs 260 and Rs 270 per customer; in the case of a player like us where we need to do KYC for a 10 crore user base, the cost becomes Rs 2,500 crore,” added Abbot.
Many small merchants use wallets to accept peer-to-peer payments from customers who do not carry cash.