Paytm Payments Bank, owned by One97 Communications and its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, received an approval to formally launch its services from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Sharma said in a blog post on Tuesday. A company official informed that the payments bank is expected to be launched by February.

“Reserve Bank of India gave permission to formally launch Paytm Payments Bank. We can’t wait to bring it in front of you,” Sharma wrote in the blog.

The aforementioned official also said that the payments bank is expected to be launched with a pilot project at Noida in Uttar Pradesh, where One97 Communications is headquartered. Sharma had received the in-principle approval for the payments bank in August 2015, which came with an 18 month validity of launching the services.

“At Paytm Payments Bank, our aim is to build a new business model in banking industry, focused on bringing financial services to 100’s of millions on un-served or underserved Indians. With power of technology and innovation-at-scale, we aim to become a benchmark in world of banking,” Sharma wrote in the blog.

Sharma owns 51 per cent in the payments bank, while One97 Communications owns 49 per cent. Last month, the structure of One97 Communications was changed to meet the regulatory requirements. The wallets business, which was owned by One97 was transferred to the Paytm Payments Bank.

In February 2016, the company had roped in former DGM of RBI and senior executive at PwC Shinjini Kumar to become the CEO of Paytm Payments Bank.

Meanwhile, Paytm has also added support for payments using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) ahead of the introduction of its payments bank, which will further ease transfers into the wallet.

Once a customer enters his/her Unified Payments Interface ID on the payment page, a collect-money request would be sent to UPI-enabled apps on his/her smartphone. #casansaar (PTI)