Paytm to begin its payments bank operations on 23rd May: Report
After Airtel, Paytm is all set to inaugurate its Payments Bank operations on 23rd May. Paytm, after receiving the final approval from RBI is finally ready with its payments bank services after a few months of delay. The digital wallet in 2015, had received an in-principal approval from RBI to setup a payments bank which was scheduled to begin the operations around November last year.
As per a public notice, “..Paytm Payments Bank Ltd (PPBL) has received the final licence from the RBI and would commence its operations on May 23, 2017”. Once Paytm begins with its payments bank operations, the company will transfer its wallet business to the newly incorporated entity – PPBL. Currently Paytm has over 218 million mobile wallet users who are actively using Paytm wallet for digital transactions.
Post 23rd May, all the Paytm wallet users will be moved to PPBL. However, all the users who do not wish to be moved to PPBL, will have to inform Paytm before hand so that their wallet balance can be transferred to their respective bank accounts after the needful procedure is done. Also, for all those users who have been inactive on Paytm for more than Six months, the transfer to PPBL will be done only after specific confirmation of the user. Individuals and small merchants will be able to deposit upto Rs. 1 Lakh per account in the payments bank.
After PM Narendra Modi led digital India movement and demonetisation, the use of digital means for money transaction is on the rise in India. Many of the big firms are on the way to set-up digital wallets and seeking licenses from RBI. Apart from Paytm, 10 others were also given green signal from RBI for setting up payments bank in the country but there hasn’t been any further news regarding the progress.
At present, only Airtel and India Post run payment banks operations in India, also in addition to Paytm, the Aditya Birla Idea payments bank is expected to begin its services some time in the first half of the year.
