Tech Mahindra in final stage of finalising payments bank management

The payments bank will be a subsidiary of Tech Mahindra and will target users in both rural and semi-urban areas as well as the millennial generation

Tech Mahindra is close to finalising the management team for its payments bank. The company, which has a licence for a payments bank, said it would be ready by the October-November deadline set by the Reserve Bank of India.

“Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Finance will have presence on the board, and the team managing the bank should be in place in a couple of months. The team will not be from either Tech Mahindra or Mahindra Finance,” said Jagdish Mitra, chief strategy and marketing officer, Tech Mahindra. The company is partnering Mahindra Finance for the bank.

“Telstra recently bought a healthcare company in Chennai and last year BMW drew the maximum crowd at the Mobile Congress at Barcelona. Clearly, all industries are converging and our payments bank venture is a reflection of this trend,” Tech Mahindra’s Chief Executive Officer C P Gurnani said.

“Our strategy is to leverage Mahindra’s large rural distribution network. We will also leverage our Saral Rozgar platform that has 6 million users,” added Mitra. The payments bank will target users in rural and semi-urban areas as well as the millennial generation.

Mitra said this business would depend on volume and ease of transactions.

“We will not run a business without its profitability in place. People will have to realise a new-age business is very different than an information technology project,” he said.

Mitra said the rollout would begin in areas where the Mahindra group had a strong presence. “The challenge is maintaining the customer experience at a low transaction cost,” he added.