Reliance Jio Payment Bank Started – Benefits Of Payments Bank

Reliance’s Jio Infocomm has now forayed into the banking business with a payments bank service and named it as Jio Payment Bank (Jio Payments Bank Limited), a joint venture between Reliance Industries and State Bank of India with a 70:30 per cent partnership between the two.

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is one of the 11 applicants for setting up payments bank in August 2015. Jio received the licence to start operation in March 2017, according to media reports.

The 11 unit as Payment Banks who got license, under Section 22 (1) of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 to carry on the business of payments bank in India, from RBI are-

• Aditya Birla Nuvo Limited
• Airtel M Commerce Services Limited
• Cholamandalam Distribution Services Limited
• Department of Posts
• Fino PayTech – Fino PayTech Limited
• National Securities Depository Limited
• Reliance Industries Limited (Jio Payment Bank)
• Shri Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi
• One97 Communications – PayTM Payment Bank
• Tech Mahindra Limited
• Vodafone m-Pesa Limited

What is a payments bank?

A payments bank is like any traditional bank but operating at a smaller scale. The only difference is that payments banks do not have any credit-providing service.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel was the first one to start payments bank services in India in November 2016. After a huge success during demonetization, PayTM also launched its payments bank services in May 2017.

FINO Payments Banks Limited started in June 2017. The Aditya Birla group’s Idea Payments Bank was started from February 22 this year. And now, Reliance JIO.

How are they different from traditional banks?

The Airtel payments banks offers the highest interest rate of 7.25% unlike the other traditional systems. PayTM payments bank offers an interest rate of 4 per cent on a savings account and 7 per cent on fixed deposits. Payments banks can accept deposits of up to Rs. 100,000 per account from individuals and small businesses.

Apart from the interest rates, payments banks offer zero balance accounts or no minimum balance accounts without any extra charge.

Image credit- Canva