Days after three entities decided to back out of the Payments Bank licencing, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan on Tuesday said that he is not surprised by the former’s move of surrendering Payments Bank licences. However, Rajan gave a hint on having a mechanism to ensure entities apply for licences after due diligence as there is a cost involved in screening them.
It may be mentioned that three entities— Tech Mahindra, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company and a consortium of Dilip Shanghvi, IDFC Bank and Telenor Financial Services have chosen to surrender Payments Bank licences due to reasons better known to them.
“RBI is not perturbed that a few people decided after analysis that they would not go forward. This, in fact it suggests that licencing has been adequately liberal and that we have a variety of players coming in,” Rajan said at a media briefing after unveiling second bi-monthly monetary policy for the current fiscal.
Last August, RBI gave in-principle nod to 11 applicants including Department of Posts, Aditya Birla Nuvo, Airtel M Commerce Services, Fino PayTech, National Securities Depository, Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra and Vodafone m-pesa for setting up payments banks.
