Bharti Airtel (Airtel) on Monday said that its subsidiary Airtel M Commerce Services Limited (AMSL) on Monday has been granted payments bank license from Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The company in January last year has filed an application for the payments bank licence with the RBI, and had gotten Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited (Kotak) as an investor.

“Pursuant to Regulation 30 of Listing Regulation, we are pleased to inform you that AMSL, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Limited has been granted payments bank license from RBI on April 11, 2016,” the company said in a filing to BSE.

According to the agreements last year, Kotak had picked up 19.90 per cent stake in AMSL, which amounts to around ₹98.38 crore (9.83 crore equity shares).

AMSL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Airtel which offers mobile money services under the brand name ‘Airtel Money’ which proposes to convert the existing pre-paid payment instrument licence into a Payments Bank license as per the guidelines prescribed by the RBI.

Airtel Money, launched in 2011 was the first mobile based pre-paid payment instrument service in the country which today empowers millions across India to leverage their mobile phones as a secure way for making payments and transferring money.

“The RBI guidelines provide an exciting and challenging opportunity for an entity like us to contribute in a meaningful manner to drive financial inclusion,” Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (India and South Asia), Airtel had said last year while announcing the partnership with Kotak.

AMSL was one of the 11 entities, including Aditya Birla Nuvo, Department of Posts, Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra and Vodafone m-pesa, which were granted approval in August 2015 by the RBI for setting up payments banks.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW