Bharti Airtel’s subsidiary Airtel M-commerce services is all set to start a payments bank in the second quarter of the current fiscal. Reports say that Airtel Payments Bank Limited is country’s first company to receive a payments bank licence from banking regulator Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on April 11, 2016.
Airtel also announced renaming of Airtel m-commerce services as Airtel Payments Bank. A new logo has also been unveiled by the Company recently.
Kotak Mahindra Bank had acquired 19.9% stake in Airtel Payments Bank Ltd for about 98.8 crore in 2015. Kotak is expected to bring its banking expertise to the venture.
Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel said the company is looking forward to strengthen Government’s vision of financial inclusion and banking services to every citizen of the country.
“Our new identity focuses on the payments bank domain. Airtel’s deep distribution network has presence in almost every part of the country and it would certainly help Airtel Payments Bank to render quality banking services to customers by leveraging the power of mobile telephony,” he said.
Airtel Payments Bank Limited (which began operations in 2011 as Airtel M-Commerce Services Ltd.) currently provides money transfer services and semi-closed wallet services — Airtel Money, having presence in over 800 towns across India.
An Airtel statement mentioned that Airtel distribution channel is spread across 1.5 million outlets with network presence in 5,126 census and 464,361 non-census towns and villages in India covering about 87 per cent of the population.
