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Informist, Monday, Mar. 2, 2026

 

--Fino Payments Bank: Keeping enhanced buffers post MD Gupta's arrest 

--CONTEXT: Fino Payments Bk's remarks in concall on arrest of MD in GST case 

--Fino Payments Bank: No message from RBI so far concerning regular business 

--Fino Payments Bank: No impact on acct opening, balances post MD's arrest 

 

By Shubham Rana and Shweta

 

NEW DELHI - Fino Payments Bank is maintaining enhanced monitoring and prudential buffers to ensure continued stability after the arrest of Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Rishi Gupta last week, the lender's management said in a call with analysts Monday. The bank maintained that the ongoing goods and services tax investigation, under which Gupta has been arrested, pertains to some program managers related to the bank and not the bank itself.

 

Gupta was Friday arrested by the Director General of GST Intelligence, Hyderabad, in connection with an investigation into alleged GST evasion by certain program managers associated with the bank. "As part of their investigation, authorities have alleged his involvement in relation to provisions of real money gaming services by partner entity and the alleged under-reporting of GST," the bank's Chief Financial Officer Ketan Merchant said. Merchant has been appointed as Head of the Organisation by the bank's board to carry on and oversee the day-to-day operations in Gupta's absence.

 

"The bank and Mr. Gupta in his official capacity have no role in business operations of a program manager in question," Merchant told analysts. "Claims and information relating to GST liability for bank are completely baseless and factually incorrect. Legal advisers have expressed positive view regarding the legal tenability of the action taken and matter will now proceed through a judicial process in Hyderabad," Merchant said. 

 

There has been no impact on account openings and balances after Gupta's arrest, the bank's management said. Customer balances on Thursday stood at around INR 22.50 billion and have only increased since then, Merchant said. "Our teams are monitoring at regular intervals to ensure customers do not face any challenges," he said. 

 

Business volumes over the last three days have also not seen any impact, Merchant said. The bank's daily average current account savings account opening numbers remained at around 10,000 and the throughput remained in the range of INR 13 billion per day. "This is in line with the average and in certain cases even better given that there were weekends," Merchant said.

 

The bank had reported a net profit of INR 122.5 million for the December quarter, down 47% on year, with a total income of INR 3.94 billion. At 1005 IST, shares of the bank were down over 1% at INR 190.08 on the National Stock Exchange. 

 

The Reserve Bank of India has not expressed any concerns over the lender's normal banking operations, Fino Payments Bank's management said. There should also be no impact on the bank's plan to transition to a small finance bank, the management said. The RBI has given a 18-month timeline to Fino Payments Bank to become a small finance bank.  End

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Vandana Hingorani

 

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