The newly licensed payments bank based in Mumbai called Fino Payment Bank has been fined with an amount of Rs 1 crore by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Following this move, the payments bank was required to stop all its account opening activities. The RBI found out that there were few accounts with the bank with deposits in excess of Rs 1 lakh, which goes against the licensing criteria of a payments bank.
“The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has, on October 31, 2018, imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 1 crore on Fino Payments Bank Limited (the bank) for contravention of the direction to stop opening of new accounts until further instructions…,” said the regulator.
A Fino Payments Bank spokesperson stated that the RBI has directed Fino Payments Bank to put in place appropriate process to address the operating guidelines on deposit limits in customer accounts.
Fino is one of the multiple payment banks which was penalized by the RBI for some reason of the other. Both Paytm Payments Bank and Airtel Payments Bank have had to face regulatory ire for not adhering to licensing guidelines properly. While Fino and Airtel have commenced operations, Paytm Payments Bank still has not been allowed to restart account opening activities.