The Delhi High Court has ordered the winding-up of Paytm Payments Bank, in orders dated 8 and 22 July 2026, the Reserve Bank of India said on 28 July, 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 is listed on the National Stock Exchange under the symbol PAYTM.
LIQUIDATOR APPOINTED BY COURT
Nair, a former chief general manager at State Bank of India, will oversee the liquidation process and exercise all the powers of the bank's board with effect from 8 July, the RBI said.
A payments bank can accept deposits but cannot extend loans. When it cancelled the licence in April, the RBI said the bank had enough liquidity to repay its entire deposit liability upon winding up.
END OF A LANDMARK PAYMENTS BANK
Paytm Payments Bank received in-principle approval from 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.
One 97 Communications, of which Paytm Payments Bank is an associate rather than a subsidiary, said after the RBI's April action that it had no exposure to the payments bank as it had already impaired its investment by March 2024. The wider Paytm business continues to operate its other financial-services and payments activities through separate entities, but the winding-up marks the end of the payments-bank associate.
Regulatory action against the bank began in March 2022, when the RBI ordered it to stop onboarding new customers; in January 2024 it barred the bank from accepting fresh deposits.
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