New Delhi: In a much-needed relief to the e-wallet companies, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on late Monday extended the deadline for Know Your Customer (KYC) norms for prepaid payment instrument (PPI) issuers by six months.
The earlier deadline was February 28.
Major mobile wallet players such as Paytm, Amazon Pay, Ola Money and others the central bank over the last few months.
As per reports, as much as 70-80% customers of e-wallets have not completed the e-KYC and as per the previous deadline, their accounts would have been rendered invalid by end of February.
But the problem does not here. Previously, they depended on the Aadhar but as per the latest Supreme Court ruling, private companies are not anymore allowed to use Aadhar for e-KYC. Apex court’s ruling makes it difficult for both companies and the customers for undertaking the KYC.
Coming to cost-effectiveness, while e-KYC costs on average about Rs 15 per person, the physical route requires Rs 80-100.
Additionally, any customer using more than one e-wallet has to physically go and complete the physical KYC process for each of them. Customers have been showing resistance for this lengthy process.
The biggies in the fintech and e-commerce space like Paytm and Amazon have reportedly deployed boots on the ground to get customers to complete the KYC formalities. What moves smaller companies make is yet to be seen.
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Ms Kalinga