Looking to launch payment bank at the earliest: Airtel

The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday gave in-principle nod to 11 companies to launch a payment bank. Bharti Airtel, one of the company which was granted the approval, is looking to launch its payment bank services at the earliest, says Director of Consumer Business Srini Gopalan.

Below is the transcript of Srini Gopalan’s interview with CNBC-TV18's Kritika Saxena

Q: The other thing that the street is waiting for of course is the payment bank license. That has kicked in a lot of discussion and this will of course be significant from an Airtel point of view but how would you look at working around partnerships for and would you be able to leverage the fact that you are looking at a large 4G play. Would that give you a benefit or an edge over peers?

A: From our perspective the heart of payments bank is financial inclusion and there are multiple kinds of financial exclusions that exist today. From the point of people who are unbanked, to people who are uncarded; to people who are largely in the cash economy.