Reliance Industries, SBI take a step forward on payments bank

At a time when some business houses are surrendering their payments bank licences, India's largest lender the State bank of India (SBI) and the top private company Reliance Industries on Friday said they were moving ahead with their plans in this area.

The two signed their 30:70 shareholders' agreement and said they have agreed to partner and explore the opportunity of fulfilling the needs of the unbanked and the under-banked segments by providing relevant financial services and products.

"All requisite regulatory and statutory approvals will now be sought for operationalising the payments bank," Reliance Industries said in a regulatory filing on Friday.

The company, in February, had been granted in-principal approval by the Reserve Bank of India for setting up a payments bank as the company sought to leverage it with its Jio 4G service with a host of applications, that is set for commercial launch soon.

Two months ago, a consortium of Sun Pharma-promoter Dilip Shangvi, IDFC Bank and telecom operator Telenor had surrendered their payments bank license. And two months prior to that, Cholamandalam Investment had taken a similar decision regarding their approval.

--IANS

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