BharatPe: How the payments startup won a rare banking licence in India

Reserve Bank of India rewards the company and its partner, Jaspal Bindra, for agreeing to help revive Punjab & Maharashtra Co-operative Bank.

BharatPe, a barely three-year-old payments startup, is going to be the half-owner of a bank in India--a prize that has eluded many of the country’s pedigreed tycoons.

It’s a lucky break. Even Jaspal Bindra, who’ll own the other half, has had to wait six years for this chance, ever since his reign as the top Asia banker at Standard Chartered Plc ended amid a heap of losses in India and Indonesia. 

The in-principle approval for BharatPe and Bindra is a marriage made in heaven, or rather the capital-starved hell that has been the country’s banking system for much