Anubrata Biswas, MD and CEO | Photo credit: cueapi
Airtel Payments Bank aims to attract 30 million savings bank account (SBA) users who transact monthly (MTU) on its platform by the end of FY26, MD and CEO Anubrata Biswas said. business linee. Over the past two years, the payment bank’s MTU base has more than doubled from 12.4 million in August 2023 to more than 25 million in September 2025.
“With over 750 million smartphone users and nearly a billion internet users, India has seen a rapid increase in the number of bank accounts. Yet modest incomes make even small financial losses difficult to bear, leading to great caution, especially with digital payments. Our research reflects consumers’ innate fear of losing hard-earned savings due to just one mistake. That’s why urban Indians are actively looking for a second bank account for making digital payments,” said Biswas.
“Payments bank accounts are well-suited to meet this need and Airtel Payments Bank’s Safe Second Account is uniquely positioned to be the first choice. It has a mobile-first, digital-first construct and is combined with no minimum balance requirement, offering users both convenience and control. Our payments bank is already registering strong traction in digital account opening with c-KYC and we aim to end FY26 with 30 million SBA MTU,” he added.
Biswas said Airtel Payments Bank has issued over 4.28 million RuPay On-the-Go cards so far, powered with NCMC, and expects more issuances due to the new partnership with the Gurgaon Metro. In August, over 16.36 million acquisition transactions were processed by the payments bank, capturing almost 64 percent of the total NCMC transactions in the sector, which stood at 25.56 million.
Small ticket loans
Biswas reiterated the payments banking industry’s long-pending request to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to consider allowing the payments bank to provide small loans. He also pitched for allowing payment banks to offer fixed and recurring deposits.
“If you look at the small finance banking sector, they serve 20 million users, while payments banks serve over 200 million users. So just by building a regulatory framework that allows payments banks to lend even small amounts, it could be very dramatic and get many people into formal credit and boost the growth of the country. FD and RD would help expand the deposit profile, the maturing of payment banks and customer convenience,” he said.
Airtel Payments Bank is planning an IPO by September 2027 as required by RBI regulations after crossing a net worth of ₹500 crore in September 2024. However, investment bankers are yet to be appointed for the public issue.
Published on October 10, 2025
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