Business Point Today

 Paytm's shares dropped by as much as 13 per cent after the Reserve Bank of India barred the digital payments company’s Paytm Payments Bank venture from accepting new customers. The action is based on certain “material supervisory concerns” and the restrictions will continue pending a comprehensive audit of its information technology systems, the Indian central bank said on Friday. Paytm Payments Bank is a joint venture of One 97 Communications, commonly known as Paytm, and the company’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma. The Paytm app on a smartphone. The company's shares dropped by as much as 13 per cent on Monday.  The company is taking steps to comply with the central bank’s directive, including the appointment of an external auditor, it said on Saturday. Existing customers will be unaffected. The stock traded down 11 per cent at 686 rupees ($9) at 7.50am UAE time after earlier falling to 675 rupees. Paytm Payments Bank started operations in November 2017 after receiving its li...

 Most Middle East residents prefer online banking, a trend accelerated because of the digital transformation of banking and payment industries in the past few years, new research shows. Nearly 77 per cent of those surveyed in Saudi Arabia and 61 per cent in the UAE — the Arab world’s biggest economies — said they choose to do their banking online in some form, Minnesota technology company Entrust said in a recent survey. Almost 60 per cent of respondents in the two countries said they prefer using the bank’s app, while 29 per cent liked using the desktop web browser. Entrust surveyed 1,350 consumers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Singapore, Australia and Indonesia who have made or received digital payments in the past 12 months. “This study highlights how, more than ever, consumer banking is about digital interactions first, and that they [banks] must create that digital experience with security at its foundation,” said Jenn Markey, vice president of pro...