Soon it will be a month to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) directive to Paytm Payments Bank barring it from opening new accounts due to “certain material supervisory concerns”. In its March 11 order to Paytm, the RBI has also directed the digital payments company to appoint an IT audit firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of its IT system.
However, the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company is yet appointed the IT Audit firm for the audit of its IT system. The government informed the Parliament about the same on Friday. Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad told the Lok Sabha, “RBI has further informed that the Paytm Payments Bank Limited has not yet appointed the IT audit firm to conduct a comprehensive system audit of the bank.”
The RBI, in its statement on March 11, had said, “Onboarding of new customers by Paytm Payments Bank Ltd will be subject to specific permission to be granted by RBI after reviewing report of the IT auditors.”
After the RBI’s action, Paytm presented its side of the story in an exchange filing. The company clarified that it is taking steps to comply with the directions of the RBI. It also noted that existing customers will not be affected and they can continue using PPBL banking and payment services.
“All existing users of Paytm UPI, Paytm Wallet, Paytm FASTag and bank accounts can continue to use these instruments, including debit cards and net banking, for payments,” Paytm state.
Paytm Payments Bank was incorporated in August 2016 and formally began its operations in May 2017 from a branch in Noida.
It claims to have over 300 million wallets and 60 million bank accounts of consumers.
Be it a zero balance savings account, spend analytics, digital passbook or a virtual debit card, fixed deposit, money transfer, every feature has been thoughtfully created by Paytm Payments Bank to empower unbanked and underbanked Indians, according to its website information.
