India's Paytm Said to Seek License to Offer Money Market Fund
A man using a mobile device stands next to a sign for the PayTM online payment method, operated by One97 Communications Ltd., at a grocery store in Delhi, India, on Friday, Nov. 25, 2016. India's government is grappling with a furor over a rupee note ban that invalidated 86 percent of the currency in circulation.
Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/BloombergIndia’s largest digital-payments company, Paytm, is seeking a license to set up a money market fund where users can store cash and earn interest, in competition with the country’s banks, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Paytm has applied to India’s central Reserve Bank of India to start the fund and increase its offerings to its over 250 million users, said the person, asking not to be named because the matter is private. It’s another step in the startup’s push to disrupt the country’s financial services industry after it secured a banking license and began offering gold trading earlier this year. The company is now officially called Paytm Payments Bank Ltd., and is allowed to take deposits and pay interest but not lend money.