India Gets Its Fourth Payments Bank

Fino Payments Bank, on Monday, became the fourth payments bank to start operations after Airtel, Paytm and India Post.

The payments bank aims to add 3-4 million customers within the first year of operations and increase its base to 50 million over the next five years with a deposit base of Rs 10,000 crore, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Rishi Gupta told BloombergQuint.

From 410 branches and 25,000 touch points at launch, Fino expects to increase its franchise to 1 lakh touch points and more than 1,000 branches over the next five years

The payments bank has already partnered with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL) and ICICI Bank Ltd. for increasing its reach and offer loan products.

BPCL will offer its 20,000 touch points where Fino Payments Bank will be able to sell its financial products. In the partnership with ICICI Bank, the payments bank will gain access to various products including term deposits, home loans, joint liability group (JLG) loans and loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). ICICI Bank would also make available its cross border remittance product.

The payments bank will offer full range of banking services, including current and savings accounts, remittances, business correspondent lending, mobile banking through an application, life and general insurance and bill payments.

Fino Paytech Ltd received an in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to start a payments bank in August 2015. The banking regulator issued a final license in March this year. Recently, it raised Rs 400 crore to meet regulatory as well as capital requirements for the formation of the payments bank. Investors in Fino Paytech include ICICI Group, BPCL, Blackstone, IFC among others.