Payments Bank Licence: Know the applicants

Started in 2006, this Chennai-based software development and payment solutions company specialises in transaction-based systems for banks and various payment operators across India. It provides prepaid instrument iCash Card, money transfer service, payment transactions such as mobile, DTH top-ups and travel and transportation payments. It has issued 35 lakh wallets and has about one crore (10 million) customers as of now. It has 79,000 touch points or merchants and does an average of ₹3 lakh transactions a day across categories.

A listed subsidiary of the Murugappa Group, this company has a network of about 580 branches across southern, northern and western regions of the country with 75 per cent of branches in Tier II and Tier III cities. Currently, the non-banking finance company caters to about six lakh customers, including State road transport operators, small businessmen, SMEs, carpenters and farmers, by providing vehicle and mortgage finance among other financial products.

A microfinance institution headquartered in Kolkata, it began operations in 2005-06. It is engaged in the business of lending to women borrowers under the joint liability group based lending model. It operates mostly out of West Bengal and parts of Bihar.

Founded by former Motorola India CEO, Pramod Saxena, Oxigen currently helps people without any bank accounts to transfer money through their 1,50,000-odd access points through GPRS-enabled devices and with scanners that can read Aadhaar cards. For the payments bank, Oxigen has tied up with Ratnakar Bank, which has 300 branches across the country. Oxigen, founded in 2004, at present does 1.5 million transactions a day worth ₹30 crore. With a payments bank licence, it aims to double the amount. Oxigen is hopeful of touching a total annual gross transaction value of ₹10,000 crore in FY15.

Founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm is a fast-growing mobile wallet company. It is, however, going solo on the application and has not tied up with any banks as Shekhar feels it would have compromised the intent and purpose. Of the total of 30 million mobile wallets in the country, Paytm’s share is pegged at 18 million. Paytm started by offering mobile recharge and utility bill payments and today it offers a full marketplace to consumers on its mobile apps. In a short span of time, Paytm has scaled to nearly 20 million orders a month. It is in the process of raising $500 million from Alibaba.com.