Paytm in Limbo: Amid Uncertainty, RBI Rejects Concession For Company

In a major blow to the prospects of Paytm and its bank services, the Reserve Bank of India has refused to interject in the matter with a concession for the company in the ongoing fiasco. This comes in after the co-founder of the company Vijay Shekar Sharma, held a meeting with the central bank officials, to try and assuage the situation.

Earlier, the central bank threw a spanner into the flow of functioning of the entity, terminating it's banking services sighting irregularities.

Following the recent RBI decision to terminate Paytm's nodal accounts after February 29, One97 Communications Ltd (OCL), the parent company of Paytm, has announced a strategic shift, indicating a move away from dependency on Paytm Payments Bank Ltd (PPB).

As the deadline approaches for migrating nodal accounts from Paytm Payments Bank, Paytm now looks at future, where it may have to proceed without it's banking arm.

The once promising start up has more than 3 crore merchants on its platform. Amongst them, about 20 per cent, which translates to nearly 60 lakh, use PPBL as their settlement account. In addition, for most of the UPI addresses on the Paytm app, the sponsor bank – technically called payment service provider (PSP bank)