Finnish communications and Information Technology firm Nokia is mulling to offer back-end support to payments banks who have recently obtained approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Nokia is eyeing to cash in on huge business opportunities these new generation banks are likely to offer.
Notably, Nokia proposes to offer solutions around data, security applications and analytics, to handle a large number of small transactions through these banks.
It may be noted that the RBI issued in-principle approval to 11 firms in August last year. Of these, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company opted out in March this year.
Firms who have got the requisite approvals include Reliance-SBI combine, Aditya Birla Nuvo (Idea Cellular), Airtel, Vodafone, Department of Posts, FINO PayTech, Tech Mahindra, National Securities Depository Limited, Paytm, and Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi.
Nokia’s President (global enterprise and public sector) Osvaldo H Di Campli said that at present the company is still assessing the payments banks business and interested in being part of various projects.
“Our Indian team which is part of the global initiative is already engaged in discussion with various players to execute the same. Nokia is looking at the whole enterprise segments,” he said, adding the company addresses the needs of data centres to be automated.
Most of the data centres today use legacy technology, so that is the best and first solution we will bring to the market, he remarked.
Sources said Nokia is making efforts to provide a host of solutions for smart cities like smart metering, smart parking, active waste management and various other sensor technology-enabled products.
In the banking space, Nokia is already working with several international players and has the technical knowhow that payment banks would need to reinforce their backend processes.
Nokia is currently working in four non-telecom areas – providing various technology-based solutions for transportation (highways, railways); energy (oil & gas, mining, utilities); public sector (defence, public safety, smart government); and large enterprises. It also helps them with cloud-based initiatives.
