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The banking arm of telecom major Airtel, Airtel Payments Bank Limited, has reported a 10 per cent net rise in its losses at Rs. 272 crores during the fiscal period of 2017-18 as compared to Rs. 244 crores incurred during the year-ago period.
Although the total revenues at the payments bank were reported at Rs. 160 crores for the year ending March 31, 2018, posting a sharp incline of 69 per cent. The bank’s total revenues during the previous fiscal year stood at Rs. 95 crores in the previous fiscal, according to the bank’s RoC filings.
The company’s expenses were reported at Rs. 432.89 Crores in FY17-18, as against Rs. 339.33 Crores recorded in the previous year. All the financials were accessed by Tofler, a business intelligence platform.
Airtel Payments Bank also faced some troubles last year when Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) imposed a fine of Rs. 5 crores on Airtel’s payment bank for violating operating guidelines and KYC norms. The bank had also paid a fine of Rs. 2.5 crores to UIDAI for alleged violation of the terms of Aadhaar (Authentication) Regulations 2016.
As per the rule of RBI, payment banks are not allowed to lend therefore they earn revenues from interest gained through deposits in government-approved securities and current and fixed deposits in conventional commercial banks.
Other sources of revenue come from transactional charges from customers on remittances and other third-party services that the bank offers. The top competitors of Airtel Payment Bank are Paytm, Fino and IndiaPost.
