Paytm Payments Bank claims to have 100M KYC-compliant wallets

Paytm set up offline centres and a team of agents to collect documents from customers for the KYC process; the 100M milestone includes full and minimum KYC customers.

Paytm Payments Bank on Monday announced that it now has over 100 million KYC-compliant wallets of the over 220 million people using its payments service.

In October last year, the Reserve Bank of India made it mandatory for PPIs (Prepaid Instruments), including mobile-wallet operators, to make all accounts fully KYC-compliant by December 31. The deadline was later extended to February 28 this year.

In a statement, the bank stated that it has been actively educating users about the benefits of KYC and will continue to invest in setting up infrastructure to complete the process.

Last year, Paytm Payments Bank had announced that it would invest $500 million in KYC operations after RBI’s new directive. In a recent interview, Paytm boss Vijay Shekhar Sharma had stated that Paytm will be incrementally adding another 10,000 members to the team for KYC obligations alone.

Paytm said it set up offline centres and a team of agents who collected documents from customers for the KYC process. The bank stated that every KYC customer has opened a Wallet Account with Paytm Payments Bank. Also, the 100 million milestone includes both complete (or full) and minimum KYC customers.

Apart from partner agents visiting customers to complete their KYC process, the bank has also introduced localised support through Paytm KYC centers and ‘Paytm-Ka-ATM’ outlets, located through the ‘Nearby’ section on the Paytm app.

Speaking on the milestone, Renu Satti, MD and CEO - Paytm Payments Bank said,

“We are excited to see that our customers appreciate the benefits of completing their KYC and it is evident with the large number of KYC requests that we are receiving. We are doing our best to serve everyone as soon as possible while we continue to set new benchmarks for ourselves. As our commitment to our customers, we will continue to invest further to strengthen the payments infrastructure in our country. We will not stop until we take digital payments to every nook and corner of our country."

Earlier last week, Paytm came under the scanner when Jaipur-based Paytm user Shobhit Bakliwal in a series of tweets alerted about a phishing scam he almost fell prey to by a man who he identified as a Paytm KYC executive.

Last year, One97’s wallet licence was transferred to Paytm Payments Bank, which is majority owned and controlled by Indian entrepreneur Vijay Shekhar Sharma, with 51 percent ownership. The rest of the stake is owned by One97 Communications Limited.

The bank board members also include ex-Executive Director at RBI, P Vijayabashkar and ex-Managing Director at Sriram Group G S Sundararajan.

Paytm bank has not raised any external funding and is completely funded by Vijay Shekhar and One97 Communications Limited and its subsidiary.