Bharti Airtel (Airtel) on Monday April 11,2016 said that its subsidiary Airtel M
Commerce Services Limited (AMSL) has been granted payments
bank license from Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The company in January 2015 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 % 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.
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