Aditya Birla Payments Bank will wind up operations due to "unanticipated developments in business landscape" that made its economic model “unviable”. The company had begun operations only 17 months ago. The announcement was made by parent company Vodafone-Idea in exchange filing on July 19. Total customer deposits with Aditya Birla payments Bank stands at Rs 20 crore. Operations will continue for a limited number of banking transactions so that customers can withdraw and transfer their balances, further credit to the accounts will be restricted from July 26. MediaNama has reached out to the company for comment and will update this when we hear from them. Aditya Birla Payments Bank had received the banking license from the RBI on April 3, 2017, for carrying on the business of a payments bank and had also received an authorisation to carry on the business of Prepaid Payments Instrument. It commenced business from February 22, 2018. Payments banks in losses The RBI had originally awarded 11 payments bank licenses in February 2015, out of which, four licenses were returned, leaving 7 operational payments banks. Aditya Birla Payments Bank's shut down will bring that number down to 6. Payments banks have been recording losses for some time now. In January, the RBI said in its trends and progress report 2017-18, that payments banks had recorded losses for two successive years. The consolidated balance sheets of payments banks showed net losses of Rs 516.5 crore in FY17-18, almost double from the previous year, when they lost Rs…
