Spice Digital has received a semi-closed pre-paid payments wallet license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), reported Medianama. The RBI has received 41 applications for payments banks, so far. Notification on RBI’s site showed that the company was given the license in April this year, and is valid up to June 30, 2020. Along with Spice Digital, Airtel M-Commerce, Citrus Payment Solutions, Idea Mobile, ITZCash, Tech Mahindra, and Reliance Payment were among the others, who got licenses.
While the Nachiket More Committee report had recommended ending the pre-paid payments instrument (PPI) license system, and instead suggested that, companies should apply for a payments bank license. However, RBI in its final guidelines for payments banks stated that companies with existing PPI licenses could opt to convert to a payments bank license. To avoid any confusion, it also said that it was not mandatory for an existing PPI issuer to apply for the conversion, and that it may continue as a PPI issuer.
In November 2014, RBI renewed Vodafone India’s mobile wallet licence. Other synergies were being explored too, when Vodafone signed a deal with Bharat BPO – a Spice Digital Group company – to integrate M-Pesa, as a payment option for the SMS- based railway ticket booking service, that Bharat BPO offers.
According to this source, the mobile devices business continues to dominate Spice Mobility’s revenues, representing 89.45% (Rs 474.49 crore) of the company’s revenues for the March 2015 quarter. This segment accounted for 89.89% of the company’s revenues in the same quarter last year.