Shanghvi, Telenor, IDFC Bank withdraw from payments bank

Last September, Dilip Shanghvi, Chairman of Sun Pharma, as lead applicant along with Telenor Financial Services and IDFC Bank, was granted in-principle licence by Reserve Bank to form a payments bank.

Telenor Financial Services, IDFC Bank and Sun Pharma's Dilip Shanghvi have decided to withdraw their licence to set up a payments bank.

They are the second applicant to withdraw from the licence after Cholamandalam group pulled out of payments banks race a couple of months back.

In a joint press statement, the partners said: "Dilip Shanghvi, IDFC Bank and Telenor Financial Services jointly agree to withdraw plans to establish a payments bank venture and consequently the payment bank licence will not be pursued."

Last September, Dilip Shanghvi, Chairman of Sun Pharma, as lead applicant along with Telenor Financial Services and IDFC Bank, was granted in-principle licence by Reserve Bank to form a payments bank.

"Following the mutual decision to withdraw from setting up a payments bank, the licence will not be pursued," said Shanghvi on behalf of Dilip Shanghvi Family & Associates.

Last year, RBI had allowed 11 companies, joint ventures or individuals including Reliance-SBI, Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and PayTm, among others to set up payments banks. None of them have launched the service yet, though.