The Reserve Bank of India on 4th December 2020 to inculcate discipline and encourage the submission of applications by serious players as also for effective utilization of regulatory resources, has been decided to introduce the concept of Cooling Period.
The Cooling Period shall be for one year from the date of revocation / non-renewal / acceptance of voluntary surrender/rejection of application, as the case may be. In respect of entities whose application for authorization is returned for any reason by RBI, condition of Cooling Period shall be invoked after giving the entity an additional opportunity to submit the application.
The cooling period shall be introduced in the following situations:
- Authorised Payment System Operators (PSOs) whose Certificate of Authorisation (CoA) is revoked or not-renewed for any reason; or
- CoA is voluntarily surrendered for any reason; or
- Application for authorisation of a payment system has been rejected by RBI.
- New entities that are set-up by promoters involved in any of the above categories; definition of promoters for the purpose, shall be as defined in the Companies Act, 2013.
Further during the Cooling Period, entities shall be prohibited from submission of applications for operating any payment system under the PSS Act.
