The Reserve Bank of India has slapped monetary penalty on five pre-paid payment instrument issuers including Vodafone m-pesa and Phonepe, for violating regulatory guidelines.
A penalty of ₹3.05 crore has been imposed on Vodafone m-pesa and ₹1 crore each on Mobile Payments, PhonePe and G.I. Technology Private Ltd.
Also, a penalty of ₹5 lakh has been imposed on Y-Cash Software Solutions.
In a separate statement, the central bank said it had imposed a penalty of ₹29.67 lakh on Western Union Financial Services Inc., USA., and ₹10.12 lakh on MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc, USA, for non-compliance of regulatory guidelines.
The penalties on Western Union and MoneyGram had been imposed by the central bank under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, for compounding of the contravention.
Yes Bank penalised
RBI also imposed a penalty of ₹11.25 lakh on private sector lender Yes Bank for violation of norms pertaining to issuance and operations of PPIs.
In a statement to the exchanges, the private sector lender said: “RBI has identified certain violations of RBI circular … on Issuance and Operation of Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) in connection with certain product features of an open loop prepaid card (co-branded) previously issued by the bank.”
“The bank had launched this product as a pilot program from September 13, 2017, and had later discontinued this product with effect from March 14, 2018,” it added.
