Mobile wallets are not happy with RBI’s latest draft guidelines. Here’s why

The guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for prepaid payment instrument (PPI) licence holders are not going well with the mobile wallet companies.

Reportedly, the mobile wallets have raised several concerns over RBI’s proposed guidelines. One of the issues that these companies have is of the know your customer (KYC) norms.

"Some clarifications were sought on certain clauses, while PPIs discussed issues around KYC, especially since it could be an overkill for small transactions," one of those at the meeting told ET.

The Payment Council of India and the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) had organised a meeting in which they gave out feedback on the proposed norms.

As per RBI’s draft guidelines, the PPIs will have to move to full KYC details within 60 days of the PPI licence being issued. Presently, e-wallets and other such prepaid payment instruments can only hold up to Rs 20,000 per user with minimum KYC.

"In the feedback given to RBI, the main request is that minimum KYC be retained or that the deadline for implementing full KYC be extended to 18-24 months, since by then telecom companies would have done Aadhaar linking of mobile numbers. That will help mobile wallets do full KYC for all customers," one industry member told ET, adding “The other ask is that RBI should publish the interoperability guidelines for wallets.”

Some of these concerns, especially full KYC compliance, were raised at the meeting, according to those present.

PPIs are currently seeing monthly transactions of Rs 6,000 crore, of which about Rs 4,000 crore is from money transfers while corporate solutions such as smart cards for expense management constitute about Rs 500 crore, ET quoted people with knowledge of the matter.