RBI Penalizes 5 PPI Issuers Including PhonePe, Vodafone M-Pesa

In a press release on Friday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that it has slapped penalties on five Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPI) issuers and two remittance service providers for non-compliance of its regulatory norms.

The central bank has imposed penalties of Rs 3.05 crore on Vodafone M-Pesa, Rs 5 lakh on Y-Cash Software Solutions Private Limited and Rs 1 crore each on My Mobile Payments Limited, Phonepe Private Limited and GI Technology Private Limited.

In the release regarding the penalties on these PII issuers RBI said, "In exercise of powers vested under Section 30 of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, the Reserve Bank of India has imposed monetary penalty on the following five PPI Issuers for non-compliance of regulatory guidelines."

Further, RBI also imposed penalties worth imposed monetary penalty of Rs 29.66 lakh and Rs 10.11 lakh on Western Union Financial Services Inc., USA and MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc., USA, respectively, for non-compliance of regulatory guidelines. The regulator has imposed these penalties under the provisions of Section 31 of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 for compounding of the contraventions