Reliance Jio may launch payment bank in December: Reports

After giving jitters to telecom operators, Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Jio is now planning to roll out its payment bank in December, which is likely be a joint venture between the company and State Bank of India (SBI), LiveMint reported.

According to the report, the payment bank was earlier expected to launch its operations in October but its got delayed because the Reserve Bank of India had asked them (Jio Payments Bank) to demonstrate its capabilities to ensure it is ready for a glitch-free launch.

The report further said that, "The RBI wanted to be sure that the payments bank is fully compliant with all the regulations and is able to service its customers efficiently. The demonstrations are being made to assure the regulator that the standards of customer service will be sustainably maintained."

However, another person said that banking is not a focus for the company, and with this Payments Bank, Jio is looking to add new customers to its network

To recall the company received approval from the central bank to launch a payment bank back in August 2015.

Currently, Jio has 130 million subscribers customers as of 31 August.

Meanwhile, the company has once again as the fastest 4G network in the month of Septemeber and this is for the eighth consecutive month that the company has managed to maintain the top position.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, Jio posted the average speed of 18.43 Mbps, Vodafone (8.999 Mbps), Idea Cellular (8.746 Mbps) and Bharti Airtel (8.550 Mbps).

Furthermore, OpenSignal the global network testing service, India's largest telecom service provider, Bharti Airtel has topped 3G and 4G speed charts, while Reliance Jio's is still ahead in terms of 4G availability.

The report said that "Airtel still took our 3G and 4G speed awards, Jio's superior 4G availability drove it to the top of our overall speed rankings. In short, Jio may not have had the fastest LTE speeds, but it delivered the fastest overall mobile data experience, according to our data."