4.4.18

Jio Payments Bank begins ops

Jio Payments Bank has commenced operations with effect from April 3, 2018, the RBI said in a statement. Reliance Industries was one of the 11 applicants which was issued inprinciple approval for setting up a payments bank.

SBI is a strategic shareholder in Jio Payments Bank with 30% stake. Although the RBI had initially granted licence to 11 applicants, only five have set up banks so far. Besides Jio, the remaining four are Airtel, India Post, Fino Payments Bank and Paytm. H Srikrishnan, who was earlier with HDFC Bank and Yes Bank has been appointed MD and CEO of Jio Payments Bank. RIL plans to move customers of JioMoney to its payments bank.

The others who had received approval include Aditya Birla Nuvo, Cholamandalam, National Securities Depository, Vodafone M-Pesa, Tech Mahindra and a proposed joint venture of Sun Pharma promoter Dilip Shanghvi, IDFC Bank and Telenor. Of these companies, Tech Mahindra, Cholamandalam and the Shanghvi-IDFC-Telenor combine have already dropped out.

The business case for payments lenders has shrunk considerably as most of the transactional services can be offered by digital wallets and regular bank accounts.

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