MAM
Kinetic & GroupM acquire majority stake in French OOH company
MUMBAI: WPP’s wholly-owned operating companies, Kinetic and GroupM have agreed to acquire a majority stake in France based out-of-home (OOH) company Financiere Poster (Poster Conseil).
Poster Conseil manages media planning and buying for agencies and direct clients, and provides planning and measurement technologies to both agencies and vendors.
It employs 25 people and is based in Paris.
Poster Conseil will continue to be led by CEO Xavier Sorato. The agency’s consolidated revenues for the year ended 31 December, 2014 were EUR 9.8 million, with gross assets of EUR 8.5 million.
Tenthavenue, Kinetic’s parent company, develops and delivers content that aligns brand objectives with consumer needs in OOH and moving environments. The subsidiary companies of Tenthavenue provide comprehensive branding services in global in-flight entertainment, OOH media advertising, mobile marketing and digital publishing.
Brands
Reserve Bank of India cancels Paytm Payments Bank licence
Central bank cites compliance failures; curbs tighten as wind-up looms
MUMBAI: India’s banking watchdog delivered its sharpest blow yet to Paytm Payments Bank, cancelling its licence and effectively ending its ability to operate as a bank under the law.
The Reserve Bank of India said the entity can no longer conduct banking business under the Banking Regulation Act, citing concerns that its affairs were not being run in the interest of depositors or the public and that it had failed to meet licence conditions.
The move escalates a crackdown that has been building for months. The bank had already been barred from onboarding new customers since March 11, 2022, and later faced restrictions on deposits, credit and wallet top-ups. In January 2024, the central bank ordered it to stop accepting fresh deposits, pointing to persistent non-compliance, including lapses in customer due diligence, use of funds and technology systems.
Operationally, the bank is now on a tight leash. It may process withdrawals of existing deposits and facilitate loan referrals through banking correspondents, but it cannot take fresh deposits.
The central bank said it would apply to the high court to wind up the bank.
Paytm sought to ringfence the fallout. In a regulatory filing, it said the licence cancellation applies to Paytm Payments Bank Limited, a separate entity, and should not be attributed to One 97 Communications. It added that there is no exposure or material business arrangement with the bank and that it operates independently, without Paytm’s board or management involvement.
“As informed earlier, Paytm (One 97 Communications Limited) and its services, which have been operating without interruption, will continue to operate uninterrupted. These include the Paytm app, Paytm UPI, Paytm Gold and all other services offered by its subsidiaries and associated companies,” the company said.
The distinction may reassure users of the app ecosystem, but the regulator’s verdict is unequivocal. After years of warnings, caps and curbs, the payments bank experiment at Paytm is being shut down—decisively, and with little room left to manoeuvre.
