Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and State Bank of India’s payments bank, Jio Payments Bank, came into existence on November 10 just two days after the Indian government announced the decision to discontinue Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, the Indian Express reported, citing documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
The joint venture was given an in-principle approval for the payments bank in September 2015 by the Reserve Bank of India.
The report said that the Jio Payments Bank would leverage Jio’s mobile subscriber base and SBI’s network in the country. Reliance Jio, which launched commercial services on September 5, already operates a prepaid wallet under the Jio Money brand.
As per filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), Jio Payments Bank has seven directors on its Board, including H Srikrishnan, who is also the CEO designate at the payments bank, Alok Agarwal and SBI’s deputy managing director of (Corporate Strategy & New Business) Manju Agarwal, who is also on the board of National Payments Corporation of India.
Manisha Girotra, CEO of Moelis India, Rajendra Kumar Saraf, board director for Itz Cash Card, Sethurathnam Ravi, a director on boards of several companies such as IDBI Bank Ltd, BSE Ltd, Aditya Birla Health Insurance Co Ltd, BOI Merchant Bankers Ltd, and Vivek Bhandari, president, IIHMR University are the other members of the board of Jio Payments Bank
India’s leading telecom operator, Bharti Airtel’s Payments Bank has already gone live in Rajasthan on November 23, and it has opened over 10,000 customers savings accounts within the first two days of operations. It is offering bank account opening services using e-KYC through Aadhar card, cash deposit and withdrawal facilities.
An interest rate of 7.25 per cent on savings accounts is being given, which is the highest in India, Airtel Payments Bank had said.
Paytm Payments Bank, India Post Payments Bank, NSDL Payments Bank, Aditya Birla Idea Payments Bank, Fino PayTech, and Vodafone m-pesa will also launch operations soon.
RIL CMD Mukesh Ambani on Thursday said that Jio is working to build a digital retail ecosystem called Jio Money Merchant Solutions to empower merchants, especially the small merchants.
