Besieged businessman Jignesh Shah, who supported Atom Technologies, will no longer subject pre-paid cards since it has given up its license as a payment system handler to Reserve Bank of India mentioning business reorganizing. On the other hand, the firm will carry on remaining functional in other verticals such as payment services and merchant aggregation across different channels such as ecom/Internet, point of sale, mobile, as well as IVR.
The RBI this week claimed that it has revoked the Certificate Of Authorization (COA) of Atom Technologies after the firm voluntarily gave up the license. The termination took effect from this week. Atom had begun the surrender procedure in August 2016. In an announcement on its website to prepaid account holders, Atom Technologies claimed that it gave up the COA to RBI owing to business reorganizing.
“Following the termination of the COA, the said firm cannot carry out the business of pre-paid card holders,” RBI claimed to the media in a notification. RBI claimed that merchants or customers having an applicable claim, if any, on Atom Technologies can ask the firm for defrayal of claims up to July 3, 2019, that is, within 2 years from the date of termination.
Atom has asked over Pre-Payment Instrument (PPI) users to close the account and redeem their balances by ordering a request. Atom operates under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 of RBI as a Payment System Operator (PSO). The Mumbai-headquartered firm is into offering payment services that are end-to-end in nature via offline as well as online platforms. Atom was established in 2006 as a division of the Financial Technologies Group, established by Jignesh Shah.
Shah encountered arrest in May 2014 by the Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing for his suspected involvement in the National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) scam worth Rs 5,600 Crore.
Having said this, now that the company has given up its license, users are in a great dilemma. But RBI has shown a ray of hope by saying that users can ask for reimbursement if their claim is valid. Let us see as to how the company handles this situation.