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NEW DELHI, February 27 (Reuters) – Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries has partnered with Facebook Inc, Google and fintech player Infibeam to set up a nationwide digital payments network, the Economic Times newspaper reported on Saturday, citing sources anonymous.
Last year, India’s central bank urged companies to form New Umbrella Entities (NUEs) to create a payments network that would rival the system operated by the National Payments Council of India (NPCI), as it seeks to reduce the risks of concentration in space.
Founded in 2008, NPCI is a not-for-profit corporation that as of March 2019 had dozens of banks among its shareholders, including the State Bank of India, Citibank and HSBC. It processes billions of dollars in payments daily through services that include interbank fund transfers, ATM transactions, and digital payments.
Citing three anonymous sources, India’s leading business daily Economic Times said the group led by Reliance and Infibeam was at an advanced stage of submitting its proposal to the Reserve Bank of India.
A spokesperson for Infibeam declined to comment on the report, saying the company was bound by the confidentiality of the process, while Reliance, Google and Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Digital payments in India could reach $ 135.2 billion in 2023, according to an Assocham-PWC India study in 2019.
Facebook and Google are already associated with Reliance and have stakes in Jio Platforms – the unit that houses Reliance’s music, movie applications and telecommunications.
The RBI this week extended the deadline for all parties to submit NUE applications until March 31 from February 26.
The report says RBI should take another six months to review all submitted proposals and should not issue more than two new “for-profit” NUE licenses.
The RBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Previous media reports have indicated that other parties in the fray include a group led by Amazon and ICICI Bank; another combination led by the country’s sel-to-software conglomerate Tata Group and private lender HDFC Bank; and a venture involving India’s largest mobile payment platform, Paytm, national ridesharing company Ola, and IndusInd Bank. (Report by Manoj Kumar edited by Clelia Oziel)
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