The Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) has chosen just 11 out of 41 applicants to set up payments banks in the
country. Payments banks are institutions that will offer most of the banking
services except loans and credit card products to retail customers. Customers
can deposit money up to Rs 1 lakh in these banks, transfer money, make payments
and buy financial products such as insurance and mutual funds.
The 11 names include India’s
postal department, two telecom players (Airtel and Vodafone), three large
corporate houses (Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), Aditya Birla Nuvo and Tech
Mahindra), two financial services firms (Fino Paytech and Cholamandalam), two
individual entrepreneurs (Dilip Sahnghvi and Vijay Sharma) and National
Securities Depository Ltd, a surprise winner.
The names that are absent in
the list are equally notable. These include Kishore Biyani of Big Bazaar,
George Muthoot of Muthoot Financial Services, prepaid payment instrument
issuers (PPIs) such as Oxigen and Itz cash and few other mobile payment
services such as My mobile payments, Pay Point and One MobiKwik Systems.
The exclusion of several PPIs
from the list is a bit surprising since these entities were originally
projected as the deserving candidates to become payments banks from the very
beginning - when the idea of payments banks was conceived by an RBI panel
headed by Nachiket Mor in early 2014. PPIs are firms that provide cards, which
customers can use to make payments with the money that’s stored in them. There
are around 24 PPIs in India. “This will be a gradual conversion for them,”
Mor had said then.
The reason why the RBI chose
not to admit majority of these firms in the list could be the regulator’s
apprehensions on their past record, financial strength and apprehensions on the
security of transactions once these entities are allowed to become banks and
begin collecting deposits from public. Similarly, the exclusion of large
hypermarket chain like Big Bazaar indicates that the RBI isn’t yet comfortable
with permitting retail chains to do banking.
Having said this, one must
note that the central bank has indicated its willingness to issue more licences
in the future, when the licensing process will be made based on a continuous
(on tap) basis. Companies that failed to get into the current list can apply
again then. As the RBI has indicated, it has currently chosen firms from
different segments and would want to learn from the experience of their
operations.
Most of the companies selected
to set up payments banks will hit the ground running since they already have
systems in place.
For instance, both Airtel and
Vodafone have fund transfer services. Airtel already partly undertakes the
functions of a payments bank by offering fund transfer services under Airtel
money that has over 1.7 million users. Vodafone too has a similar offering. RIL
has a tie-up with State Bank of India (SBI) for the payments bank roll-out. The
partnership between India’s largest commercial bank and largest corporate
entity comes with huge promises and will be keenly watched.
But as Firstpost has mentioned before, the biggest revolution in the offing is the
entry of India Post to the banking sector.
The postal department, which
failed to get into the list of full service banks when the RBI gave permits to
IDFC and Bandhan in April 2014, has been trying for long to get into the
banking business. The department has begun to set up ATMs and connect its
offices through core banking solution network. The post expects to connect
about 25,000 branches under CBS in next one year.
The India Post has already
been active in the deposit-taking activity through its various savings schemes.
As of 31 March 2014 the
outstanding balances under the post office savings scheme stood at Rs 6.05 lakh
crore, which is nearly equivalent to half the deposits of government-owned
State Bank of India, the country's largest commercial bank, and double that of
the largest private lender, ICICI Bank Ltd. The department has a network of
about 1,55,000 branches across the country, of which about 1,39,040 are in
rural areas.
Going by a 2011 estimate of
the postal department, about 6,000 people are covered on average by
post-offices in rural areas and about 24,000 in urban areas. It also already
offers insurance products. Backed by its existing outlets across the country
and a gigantic depositor base already in various post bank schemes, Post Bank
can offer a stiff competition to State Bank of India and other public sector
banks in the deposit market.
Given the fact that India Post
is present in many far-flung areas of the country, where even nationalised
banks do not have branches, a Post Bank can change the way people save in these
parts. Post is a trusted brand name in India’s households and hence, would find
it relatively easy to convince customers keep their savings with the new
entity.
The only area, where the Post
needs to improve is technology. But a lot of work has already gone into this
part as well. A senior department official told this writer that the India Post
will have to formally approach the government for its permission to set up
payments banks.
Since payments banks do not
require huge amount of capital (the initial capital requirement set by the RBI
for these banks is Rs 100 crore as against Rs 500 crore for full-service
banks), India Post will not have to struggle much to seek the capital
assistance from the finance ministry, which, in the past, had opposed India
Post’s plan to become a full-service banks citing higher capital requirement
and lack of experience in offering credit. But, this time, capital shouldn’t be
an issue.
Once the whole network of post
offices is connected with adequate technology, the biggest bank of India for
the poor is ready.
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