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6Mar By AnkitaNo Comments

INDIA

Indian Payment Apps Hit Amid Yes Bank crisis

As Yes Bank went into moratorium, many Indian digital payment platforms bore the brunt on Friday as transactions were disrupted, including Walmart owned PhonePe facing "long outage". PhonePe, which depends exclusively on Yes Bank as its payment services provider (PSP), was down since the order was imposed and also had to suffer the more-than-friendly barbs of rival Paytm Payments Bank on Twitter. Yes Bank was put under moratorium late Thursday evening, with several caps, including allowing depositors to withdraw only Rs 50,000 per account and a slew of others including not taking fresh liabilities. This resulted in the bank being unable to render the services as a PSP, experts said. Even late in the evening, PhonePe was yet to start the Unified Payments Interface services, for...

In all cash deal, JSW Set to Acquire Bhushan Steel For $6.28 billion

15Feb By AdityaNo Comments

ACQUISITION

In all cash deal, JSW Set to Acquire Bhushan Steel For $6.28 billion

India’s largest private steelmaker JSW Steel Ltd receives a letter of intent from the committee of creditors of Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd, thus approving the Bhushan steel resolution plan for the steel mill. JSW Steel will now pay Rs19,700 crore ($6.28 billion) in upfront cash to Bhushan Power and Steel’s lenders and infuse ₹350 crore in the steelmaker to revive it. Bhushan Power and Steel is the second insolvent firm acquired by Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Steel after Monnet Ispat and Energy Ltd last year. Bhushan Power and Steel operates a 3.5 million tonne (mt) steel plant in Odisha. Under its earlier promoter Sanjay Singhal, the company had accumulated debt of more than₹47,000 crore. It was one of firms in Reserve Bank of India’s “dirty dozen” list of NPA accounts referred to ...

RBI Creates Compliance Portal to Track Cyber Fraud

29Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

INDIA

RBI Creates Compliance Portal to Track Cyber Fraud

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would set up a compliance and tracking system portal to tackle the multiplication of cyber-fraud and seeks to establish a better redressal mechanism for consumers. With digital transactions gaining traction, RBI’s customer-protection measures are seen as a bid to promote and improve confidence in the digital channel. This will support the government's objective of creating a ‘less-cash’ economy. “The Reserve Bank is actively engaged in improving customer service in banks by addressing existing inadequacies and the need to benchmark it against international standards in order to instil timeliness and quality by harnessing technological developments and appropriate incentives to facilitate change,” the RBI said in its Report on Trends an...

Know Why RBI Banned Paytm Payments Bank to Open New Accounts

20Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

INDIA

Know Why RBI Banned Paytm Payments Bank to Open New Accounts

It had been reported that RBI had banned Paytm’s payments bank from opening new accounts and e-wallets in August. Want to know why? We have the answer. RBI for the first time has disclosed the reasons behind the move. The four reasons! The apex financial authority of India said that the Noida-based company was in violation of know-your-customer (KYC) rules while on-boarding users. These precise violations are not clear. Secondly, it has also been stated that the RBI was also not contended with the close relations between Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s One97 Communications and the entity that runs Paytm Payments Bank (PPB). The bank is owned 51% by Paytm owner, while the rest is owned by One97 Communications and its subsidiaries. The ...

3Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

INDIA

Indian govt & RBI may Allow use of QR code-based offline Aadhaar

The Indian government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are in talks to allow use of 'offline Aadhaar' that relies on QR codes. This would replace the biometric eKYC, for opening bank accounts, operating payment wallets and purchasing insurance covers. This particular move is significant as it will also benefit financial technology companies that have been prodding the government to amend the law to make Aadhaar mandatory. It's an option that the Centre has virtually ruled out for the moment. The SC has ruled that Aadhaar-based verification could not be done by private firms. Since the use of offline Aadhaar has to be facilitated by the RBI, the central bank needs to bring out a circular and has held two-three rounds of discussions with UIDAI. The court had ruled that Aadhaar could...

WhatsApp CEO Seeks RBI Nod to Expand Payment Services to all Users

3Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

News

WhatsApp CEO Seeks RBI Nod to Expand Payment Services to all Users

The popular messaging app Whatsapp which has drawn fire from the government over spread of fake messages on its platform, has written to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), seeking a formal nod to expand payments services to all its 200 million users in India. The company is waiting for a regulatory clearance to launch full-fledged payments operations in India - months after its 'testing' amassed nearly one million users. It has been almost two years since it first began discussions with the government on its payments services plans. "I write to request your formal approval to immediately expand WhatsApp's BHIM UPI (Unified Payments Interface) compliant payments product to all users in India, giving us the opportunity to offer a useful and secure service that can improve the lives of Indi...

Mumbai-based Fino Payment Bank Fined with Rs 1 Crore by the RBI

7Nov By Gauri SinghNo Comments

INDIA

Mumbai-based Fino Payment Bank Fined with Rs 1 Crore by the RBI

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 a...

PayU Recieved Licence from RBI to open its own NBFC

17Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

News

PayU Recieved Licence from RBI to open its own NBFC

PayU India has received a license from the Reserve Bank of India to operate its own non-banking financial company, a development that will provide a big boost to the fintech firm in growing its consumer credit business. PayU India managing director Jitendra Gupta will head the new initiative. The NBFC, PayU Credit, which will be a subsidiary of PayU, is the latest offering from the company that looks to expand its suite of credit-focused offerings. “With payments, we have access to data, and we generate data… For us, when we look at the market, the new aspirational class coming in, they need access to financing. We give financing to the consumer, which, in turn, reinforces business with merchants… This is not a market where one company can dominate,” le Moal said. PayU India processes...

RBI Orders Paytm Payments Bank to Stop Enrolling New Customers

1Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

News

RBI Orders Paytm Payments Bank to Stop Enrolling New Customers

Following observations made by the Reserve Bank of India, Paytm Payments Bank has ceased the enrolment of new customers on its platform. This happened on 20th June post audit by RBI, which made particular observations about the procedure the company follows in taking over new customers and its adherence to know-your-customer (KYC) norms. Along with this, Paytm was also recently told to remove Renu Satti as the CEO of the payments bank, where the Reserve Bank of India raised objections about her ability to lead a banking services firm. RBI wants that a banker should run the payments bank. “RBI has directed Paytm Payments Bank to stop onboarding of new customers with immediate effect,” said a person familiar to the matter. Another person, a company executive, said that Paytm is modifying...

RBI Says Cash-On-Delivery Deals Not Allowed

25Jul By AnkitaNo Comments

News

RBI Says Cash-On-Delivery Deals Not Allowed

The most convenient payment option Cash-on-delivery (Cod) provided by several online retailers such as Flipkart and Amazon may be a regulatory grey area as per the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) response to a Right to Information (RTI) query. The RBI has said that e-commerce platforms are "not authorised" to collect money from customers on behalf of third-party vendors in cash-on-delivery (CoD) deals. RBI made the statement in a reply to an RTI query. “Aggregators/payment intermediaries like Amazon and Flipkart are not authorised under Section 8 of the PSS (Payments and Settlements Systems) Act, 2007,” mentioned the apex bank in response to the report. The statement by the RBI could be a critical blow to the e-commerce industry in the country. According to the reports over half of th...

P2P Lending Firm Monexo Fintech To Raise $5 Million in Equity

6Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

P2P Lending Firm Monexo Fintech To Raise $5 Million in Equity

P2P money lending marketplace Monexo Fintech plans to raise an amount of $5 million in form of equity. The company plans to invest these funds in IT and infrastructure, which require spontaneous capital addition in the initial stages of any online business. Mukesh Bubna, the founder and CEO of the company said that they are looking for a strategic patient capital. Patient capital means those investments in which investors do not seek quick returns. The company had also received the license from RBI to operate an NBFC-cum-P2P lending platform last Friday. This type of lending platform allows the people to borrow and lend money without the need of any financial institution as a mediator. “We have begun talking to investors. With the RBI regulation in place, there is much more positivi...

MoneyOnMobile to Invest $6.2 Mn to Boost its Indian Expansion

27Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments

BUSINESS

MoneyOnMobile to Invest $6.2 Mn to Boost its Indian Expansion

US-based digital payment company MoneyOnMobile has plans to invest $6.2 Mn to boosts its Indian expansion plans, as informed by its chief executive officer, Harold Montgomery. The announcement for fresh infusion plans has come right after the firm raised $5 Mn Series H funding from S7 Group. MoneyOnMobile's chief executive officer Harold Montgomery told that with India emerging as one of the most exciting payments markets in the world, he wants to expand the company’s footprint to enable the rural and the poorer sections of the country to start transacting digitally. He also added, We have retail outlets where end consumers can just walk in and do transactions like bill payments, remittances and cash out. We have also enabled Aadhaar-enabled transactions, thereby creating a mini-ATM...