The Delhi High Court ordered the winding-up of Paytm Payments Bank on 28 July 2026, following the cancellation of the lender's banking licence by the Reserve Bank of India earlier this year. The court appointed Girikumar M. Nair, a former State Bank of India executive, as official liquidator to oversee the process.
The RBI cancelled Paytm Payments Bank's licence on 24 April 2026, citing affairs conducted in a manner detrimental to the interest of the bank and its depositors. The bank, once India's largest payments bank, is backed by Noida-based One 97 Communications Ltd, which trades on the National Stock Exchange under the ticker PAYT.
LIQUIDATOR APPOINTED BY COURT
The appointment of Girikumar M. Nair as official liquidator gives the court's nominee responsibility for the orderly dissolution of Paytm Payments Bank's affairs, including the marshalling of assets and the settlement of claims. Nair's background as a former State Bank of India executive positions him with senior banking experience for the role.
Winding-up proceedings for a payments bank present specific complexities, given the ring-fenced nature of the deposits such institutions hold and the various inter-linkages with technology platforms and merchant partners. The liquidator will need to work with regulators and other stakeholders to unwind those relationships in a way that protects depositors and orderly market functioning.
The court's order translates the earlier regulatory action into a formal legal process, moving Paytm Payments Bank from a state of licence cancellation into structured wind-down. That shift also removes lingering uncertainty over the vehicle through which residual operational and financial matters will be resolved.
END OF A LANDMARK PAYMENTS BANK
Paytm Payments Bank was granted its licence by the Reserve Bank of India in 2015 as part of the regulator's push to create a new category of institutions focused on small-value deposits and payments. It grew rapidly to become the largest of India's payments banks, closely tied to the wider Paytm digital-payments ecosystem.
The Reserve Bank's decision on 24 April 2026 to cancel the licence brought that trajectory to an abrupt end, with the regulator citing conduct detrimental to the interests of the bank and its depositors. The winding-up order now formalises the closure through the courts and shifts control of the entity to the official liquidator.
For parent One 97 Communications, the court's decision draws a line under a chapter that had weighed on the group's strategy and share price since regulatory action against the bank began. The wider Paytm business continues to operate its other financial-services and payments activities through separate entities, but the winding-up marks the definitive end of the payments-bank subsidiary that once anchored the group's regulated deposit business.
The eventual dissolution of India's largest payments bank also carries wider signalling value for the country's fintech sector, where regulators have taken a firmer line on governance and compliance in recent years. The Reserve Bank of India's reasoning in cancelling the licence, grounded in conduct considered detrimental to the bank and its depositors, sets a marker for how supervisors expect payments banks to be run and provides a reference case that other institutions will study closely.