RBI slaps penalty on Vodafone m-pesa, PhonePe and 3 others

The Reserve Bank of India Friday said it has imposed penalties on five prepaid payment instrument (PPI) issuers, including Vodafone m-pesa and PhonePe, for violation of regulatory norms.

Also, penalties have been imposed on Western Union Financial Services Inc and MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc, both US firms, for non-compliance of guidelines.

"In exercise of powers vested under Section 30 of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed monetary penalty on...five PPI Issuers for non-compliance of regulatory guidelines," the central bank said in a statement.

A penalty of Rs 3.05 crore has been imposed on Vodafone m-pesa and Rs 1 crore each on Mobile Payments, PhonePe, Private and GI Technology. Also, a penalty of Rs 5 lakh has been imposed on Y-Cash Software Solutions.

In another statement, the RBI said it has imposed penalty of Rs 29,66,959 and Rs 10,11,653 on Western Union Financial Services Inc, USA, and MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc, USA, respectively, for non-compliance of regulatory guidelines.

Penalty on Western Union and MoneyGram has been imposed by the RBI under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, for compounding of the contravention.