Paytm, which is converting itself to into a payments bank, is set to hire 10,000 agents to complete KYC for their customers. This as according to the latest guidelines laid down by RBI which makes it mandatory for both the mobile wallets and the payment banks to get complete information from their customers with respect to Know Your Customer norms.

“We already have 10,000 people on the street doing KYC of our customers, now we are planning to hire 10,000 more within the next two months to expand our capacity to do physical KYC,“ said Renu Satti, CEO of Paytm Payments Bank.

With the KYC norms and regulatory requirements becoming stringent, the mobile wallets are now at a disadvantage, according to Satti, as the cost of effort required to achieve KYC compliance is the same as that of a payments bank, but mobile wallets cannot offer interest rate on the money they have, and nor can they provide a physical debit-cum-atm card to its customers.

Considering that payments banks cannot lend money to the customers, which is the primary source of income for the conventional bank, it has not discouraged either Paytm or Airtel from opening Payment Bank branches. Instead, the payments bank would be utilizing unconventional methods of generating revenue, either by cross-selling financial products in partnership with other financial institutions or using the data generated through their platform to help brands with concentrated marketing efforts.

People Matters has reached out to Paytm and are awaiting their response on the development.