Dilip Shanghvi drops plans to form payments bank with IDFC, Telenor

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's second richest man, Dilip Shanghvi, said on Friday he had shelved plans to form a payments bank jointly with the Indian financial firm IDFC Bank and an arm of Norway's Telenor, but did not disclose the reason.

Shanghvi's company, Dilip Shanghvi Family and Associates, was among 11 firms that were awarded licences last August to set up niche "payments banks" aimed at granting millions of Indians access to basic banking.

The banks are a part of India's financial inclusion push and are meant to expand banking services in a country where less than half of the adult population holds a bank account.

Shanghvi, who is the founder and head of India's largest drugmaker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, said he had worked with IDFC and Telenor over the past eight months to make a framework and governance structure for the joint venture.

"Following the mutual decision to withdraw these plans, the payment bank license will not be pursued," Shanghvi said in a statement.

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai, editing by David Evans)