Paytm Payments Bank To Launch Paytm Debit Card

The financial arm of Paytm, India’s biggest digital payments platform, Paytm Payments Bank is set to launch their own debit card. Paytm founder Vijay Sekhar Sharma took to Facebook to announce the arrival of these RuPay cards.

According to reports, One97 Communications founder Vijay Sekhar Sharma and other existing investors have invested close to $ 9.3 million in the Payments Bank for launching their own ATM cards. The card will let users pay in places where there is no option to pay via Paytm. According to a statement released by Payments Bank, they can now accept customer deposits up to Rs. 1 lakh per customer in both savings and current accounts.

In the documents filed at the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Paytm Payments Bank said “…the consent of the Board is hereby accorded to issue on a right basis, 6,00,00,000 equity shares of the company of the face value of Rs. 10 to the investor….” The filings also reveal the board approved the issue of the equity shares on July 25, 2017.

In this round of investment, Vijay Sharma invested Rs. 30 crores whereas One97 Communications invested Rs. 23 crores and the remaining amount, close to Rs. 7 crores was invested by One97 Communications India. Sharma will be issued 30.6 million shares as a part of this round of funding while One976 communications has been allotted around 23.4 million shares.

The new Paytm debit card will allow users to shop from rival ecommerce sites or book a cab from aggregators other than Uber using their Paytm money. The Paytm Payments Bank operations were launched earlier this year and is a first mobile bank with zero charges on all online transactions and no minimum balance requirement. The bank received an initial investment of $ 34.2 million at the time of its launch in May. Sharma is the majority shareholder of the Nodia headquartered firm, while Alibaba backed One97 Communications holds the rest of the shares. The new debit card, as per their website, will also include a free insurance cover of up to $ 3,116, close to Rs. 2 lakhs, in the incident of death or permanent total disability.