Vodafone India also Seeks Payments Bank Licence

New Delhi, Feb 3 (IANS) Telecom service provider Vodafone India also has jumped onto the bandwagon of payments bank and applied for a licence with the Reserve Bank of India, a company statement said here Tuesday.

"Vodafone has filed an application with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the Payments Bank licence. We are exploring options for partnerships. We are keen and remain highly committed to building a financially inclusive business model leveraging our telco strengths and experience in the mobile payments space, fully aligned with the government and RBI’s vision,” the official statement said.

A few top Indian companies, including Reliance Industries Ltd., Aditya Birla Nuvo Limited, Bharti Airtel and Future Group, Monday applied to the RBI for payments bank licences.

Reliance Industries has roped in the State Bank of India (SBI) as an active equity partner as it seeks a licence to extend affordable banking and payments solutions in the country assisted with access to 15,869 branches and vast network of India's largest commercial bank.

Aditya Birla Nuvo Limited (ABNL), promoter and largest shareholder of Idea Cellular, also applied for payments bank licence with the RBI.

The Kishore Biyani-led Future Group also Monday applied for a payments bank licence with the RBI, the banking entity would be called NuFuture Payments Bank.

Last week, Bharti Airtel announced it was teaming up with Kotak Mahindra Bank to apply for payments bank.

The RBI issued guidelines for licensing of payments bank Nov 27, 2014. The apex bank earlier extended the last date for submission of applications to Feb 2.

A payments bank, as defined by the Reserve Bank's draft rules, can accept deposits, both savings and current, up to a maximum of Rs.10,000 initially, with the stated primary role of extending payments and remittance services to small businesses and low-income households.

Besides physical branches, some key facilitators for such services can include ATMs, mobile and internet banking, authorised business correspondents and point-of-sale terminal locations, as in retail stores.