BENGALURU: The Reserve Bank of India on Friday asked the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to examine the request of One97 Communications Ltd (OCL), the parent company of Paytm, to become a third-party application provider (TPAP) for UPI channel for continued UPI operation of the Paytm app.
“As the Paytm Payments Bank cannot accept further credits into its customer accounts and wallets after March 15, 2024, certain additional steps have become necessary to ensure seamless digital payments by UPI customers using ‘@paytm’ handle operated by the Paytm Payments Bank, and minimise concentration risk in the UPI system by having multiple payment app providers,” the apex bank said.
The RBI on February 16 extended the deadline of business restrictions that it imposed on Paytm Payments Bank to March 15 from the earlier deadline of February 29.
“It has been further advised that in the event of NPCI granting TPAP status to OCL, it may be stipulated that ‘@paytm’ handles are to be migrated in a seamless manner from Paytm Payments Bank to a set of newly identified banks to avoid disruption. No new users are to be added by the said TPAP until all the existing users are migrated to a new handle,” the RBI further added on Friday.
For migration of paytm handle to other banks, NPCI has been asked to facilitate certification of 4-5 banks as payment service provider (PSP) banks that can process high volume UPI transactions. “For the merchants using PayTM QR Codes, OCL may open the settlement accounts with one or more PSP Banks (other than Paytm Payments Bank),” it added.
The apex bank also clarified that the migration of UPI handles is applicable only to customers and merchants who have a UPI handle @Paytm. There is no action required to those customers who have a different handle.