Licence for small finance, payment banks soon: Rajan

There could be good news in the offing for all the corporates and individuals who had applied for small finance banks and payment bank licences. According to RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, the first set of licences are likely to be announced in the next three months.

“I hope to be able to announce new set of bank licences, at least one set of bank licences by August-end,” Rajan said. RBI had received 72 applications for small finance banks licence and 41 applications for payments banks licence.

Some of the big corporates which applied for a payment bank licence include RIL, Airtel M Commerce Services and the Future Group. Dewan Housing Finance, IIFL Holdings, SKS Microfinance and UAE Exchange are some of the companies that had applied for a small finance bank licence.

According to Rajan, the central bank is also having a relook at all the  regulations concerning markets.

“We are undertaking a review of all regulations governing markets to see where there is scope for further liberalisation once macro economic uncertainty diminishes but also doing a deep scrutiny of all our past regulations in general to prepare a greatly simplified list of master circulars,” Rajan said.

Debt management
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan indicated that he is in favour of  an independent public debt management agency (PDMA) but said that the government should not act in the matter without deep discussions.

“What is important and this is where we have complete agreement with the finance minister is that what is functioning well does not need to be disrupted for some hypothetical gain,” Rajan said.

There is a broader agenda of moving a whole lot of other things away from the RBI and I think we have agreed that it would not be wise without much deeper dialogue.