Idea Cellular's Aditya Birla Idea Payments Bank is Now Operational in India

One way in which the recent wave of digitization has helped Indians is to transform the way they transact and save money. As a consequence, various digital payments bank options have cropped up and the newest name to join the list is Idea Cellular. Formally known as the Aditya Birla Thought Payments Bank, the serviceis now active, every bit per the Reserve Bank of Republic of india.

The Thought Payments Bank is the seventh entity to receive an approving for payments banking from the cardinal bank. It was among the xi applicants who received an interim nod from the RBI back in August 2015 for setting up its payments bank concern. The existing payments banks in India includes Paytm, Fino, India Postal service, and Airtel Payments Depository financial institution while Reliance Jio is expected to launch a like solution in partnership with India'due south largest public sector bank, the State Bank of India (SBI).

Idea Cellular's Payments Bank is Now Operational in India — Courtesy: Pal Pillai/Agence France via Wall Street Periodical

A payments bank, as per the RBI, is a financial institution which allows its customers to save and transact amounts of up to ₹1 lakh (~$one,500) and tin can besides issue debit cards. It does non, nonetheless, have the power to effect credit or loans to its users. The RBI is promoting payments banking company solutions like these to promote the fiscal inclusion of those working in the unorganized sector or having a low-income livelihood. This is peculiarly benign for those migrating to bigger towns for work.

RBI too imposes strict KYC norms on payments banks and customers must qualify themselves to be able to use services. It recently announced that telcos offering payments bank services will accept to deploy third-parties to perform fresh KYC of customers and cannot evade the procedure for their own subscribers.

Furthermore, Idea Cellular and Vodafone are probable to merge into a unmarried entity this year and the management has previously hinted that Vodafone's m-pesa could also be merged within the Aditya Birla Idea Payments Depository financial institution.

And so far, there is no dedicated web page or app for Idea Payments Bank merely we hope to encounter those soon. Only to clarify, Thought's digital wallet solution "Idea Coin" is a different entity from the payments depository financial institution.