eNews
TRAI reverses course on radio migration fees
DELHI: India’s telecoms regulator has U-turned on how private radio broadcasters should pay to shift to digital, ditching a convoluted averaging mechanism in favour of simpler reserve prices.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRA) issued a corrigendum on 27 October revising recommendations it sent to the ministry of information and broadcasting just three weeks earlier. The original policy, dated 3 October, had proposed that when cities failed to attract bids for new digital frequencies, migration fees for existing broadcasters should be calculated by averaging prices from similar-sized cities—but only if at least two cities in that category had received successful bids.
The authority has now binned that approach. Upon review, regulators spotted that the averaging formula “could lead to certain aberrations in the migration amount vis-à-vis reserve price” in cities drawing no bids. Since reserve prices emerge from a formal valuation model and represent the minimum auction amount anyway, they make a more sensible baseline.
The ministry had sought the regulator’s advice in April 2024 on framing a digital broadcast policy for private radio operators. Under the revised scheme, existing broadcasters wanting to simulcast in digital mode will pay an amount equal to the reserve price for new frequencies, minus the proportionate one-time entry fee already paid for their remaining licence period.
The climbdown suggests India’s radio digitisation may prove trickier than expected—particularly if multiple cities fail to attract fresh bidders, leaving regulators scrambling for fair pricing formulas that don’t distort the market
eNews
PNB partners Kiwi to launch credit-enabled UPI for users
Targets 180 million customers; RuPay card offers 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent cashback
MUMBAI: Swipe, tap, or scan credit is quietly slipping into the rhythm of everyday payments, and Punjab National Bank wants in on the action. The state-run lender has partnered with Kiwi to roll out credit-enabled UPI payments for its 180 million customers, marking a significant push to blend traditional banking with India’s fast-evolving digital payments ecosystem.
At the centre of the collaboration is the launch of the PNB Kiwi Credit Card on the RuPay network. The card is designed with a digital-first approach, offering fully online onboarding and seamless integration with UPI, allowing users to transact via scan-and-pay while accessing credit.
The offering also brings in a rewards layer, with cashback ranging from 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent on online transactions, positioning the product as both a convenience play and a spending incentive.
The move comes as UPI continues to dominate India’s digital payments landscape, increasingly blurring the lines between debit-led transactions and credit access. For PNB, which operates over 10,000 branches around 60 per cent in semi-urban and rural areas, the partnership signals a targeted effort to extend formal credit to segments that have traditionally remained underserved.
The collaboration also reflects a broader industry shift, where banks and fintech platforms are converging to embed credit directly into payment flows, reducing friction while expanding access.
With RuPay credit cards gaining traction and UPI evolving beyond peer-to-peer transfers, the PNB–Kiwi tie-up positions both players at the intersection of scale, accessibility, and the next phase of digital finance in India.
