Government-owned Department of Posts or India Post, Tech Mahindra, NSDL and NSE Strategic Investment Corporation are the surprise applicants for a payment bank licence, apart from the already known big names like Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel’s Airtel M Commerce Services and Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Aditya Birla Nuvo.

Interestingly, Future group owner Kishore Biyani has applied for a payment bank in his individual capacity. As also, Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi, founder of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries; M.G. George Muthoot Managing Director of the Muthoot Group from Kochi and Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Chairman and MD of One97 Communications Ltd, among others have applied for a payment bank licence.

Among individuals who have applied for a small bank licence are Dr. K. Cherian Varghese, former Chairman and MD of Union Bank of India and Corporation Bank; Ajay Bimbhet (applied with others),former banker and MD of Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Company and Manish Khera, former ICICI Bank employee and ex CEO of FINO Paytech.

The RBI released the names of applicants of small finance banks and payment banks, stating it received, in its Central Office, a total of 72 applications for small finance banks and 41 applications for payments banks, taking the total applicants to 113.

The guidelines for licensing of Small Finance Banks and Payments Banks were issued in November, 2014. The last day to submit the applications closed on February 02, 2015 at 5.45 pm, RBI said in a release.

Payment banks

Other already well known names that buzzed before the announcement and have applied for the payment bank include Cholamandalam Distribution Services, public sector banks-owned FINO PayTech, Itz Cash Card, Oxigen Services (India), Vodafone m-pesa and Videocon d2h.

Lesser known entities such as One MobiKwik Systems, Vakrangee Ltd, Weizmann Forex Ltd and Citrus Payment Solutions, among others have applied for payment bank licence.

Small Finance Banks

For small finance bank licences, the already known applicants are Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL), Thane-based IIFL Holdings, Jalandhar-based Capital Local Area Bank, SKS Microfinance, UAE Exchange & Financial Services, etc.

Lesser known entities include Chennai-based Equitas Holdings Pvt Ltd, Ahmedabad-based Disha Microfin, New Delhi-based IntelleCash Microfinance Network Company, Chennai-based Repco Micro Finance, Kolkata-based Village Financial Services, Kochi-based Lulu Forex Pvt Ltd and others have applied among 72 others.

Department of Posts, Aditya Birla Nuvo, IIFL Holdings and Janalakshmi Financial Services had also applied for a full-service bank licence last year but lost out to IDFC and Bandhan Financial Services.

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