Bharti Airtel Payments Bank has terminated certain retailers for delinquency and performance. (Image: PTI)

Bharti Airtel Payments Bank has terminated certain retailers for delinquency and performance, the company said, without denying or confirming the number of retailers and the reason that appeared in a newspaper report. Bharti Airtel said that Airtel Payments Bank in the ordinary course of its business appoints various retailers, distributors, and terminates the for various reasons.

The Economic Times on Monday reported that Airtel Payments Bank had terminated relationships with nearly 1,000 retailers for not following the due process while signing up customers, after the banking arm of the country’s largest telecom carrier conducted internal investigations to zero in on errors and lapses that led to its Aadhaar-based e-KYC licence getting suspended.

Last month, Both Airtel and Airtel Payments bank came under fire after Airtel allegedly opened accounts of its mobile phone subscribers without seeking their “informed consent”, and LPG subsidy worth crores was being deposited to these accounts.

The government acted swiftly in the matter and the Unique Identification Authority of India, late last week, temporarily barred the company from conducting Aadhaar-based SIM verification of mobile customers using eKYC process and e-KYC of payments bank clients.

Suspending the ‘e-KYC licence key’, the Aadhaar issuing body UIDAI also ordered PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct an audit of Bharti Airtel and Airtel Payments Bank to ascertain if their systems and processes are in compliance with the Aadhaar Act. However, the e-KYC licence key was, later, restored.

In order to check diversions, the government pays subsidy equivalent to buying 12 LPG cylinders of 14.2-kg each in a year, directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries. Unlike in the past, LPG now is only available at market price. Beneficiaries get subsidy for one cylinder in advance and are replenished the moment they use it up to buying LPG refill.