AK & Partners

AK & Partners is a full-service corporate law firm ranked by Chambers & Partners, Legal 500, and IFLR1000, with a specialised practice in Banking, Financial Services, FinTech, NBFC, and Regulatory Compliance. We advise banks, NBFCs, financial institutions, and foreign investors on RBI-regulated licensing, transaction structuring, and regulatory approvals across India's credit and payments ecosystem. We advise on the full spectrum of RBI registrations and licensing, including NBFC registration and category conversions, Payment Aggregator/Payment System Operator authorisation, Authorised Dealer Category-II licensing, and digital lending compliance under RBI's Digital Lending Guidelines. Our advisory covers application strategy, documentation, and engagement with RBI through to grant of license. We structure and execute change-of-control transactions in RBI-regulated entities, including NBFCs, payment companies, and banking institutions, where deal structuring has to be built around RBI's fit-and-proper criteria, prior approval conditions, and post-completion compliance obligations. Our role spans due diligence, transaction documentation, and regulatory liaison, so deals close on terms RBI will actually approve, not just terms negotiated commercially. We have direct experience advising Urban Co-operative Banks through RBI-regulated licence transitions, including Authorised Dealer Category-II conversions and change-of-control acquisitions of multi-branch UCBs. This gives us working depth in the governance, capital, and structuring requirements RBI evaluates under its Scheme for Voluntary Transition of Primary (Urban) Co-operative Banks into Small Finance Banks, from board and shareholding restructuring through to the transition roadmap RBI expects before granting in-principle approval. We regularly advise foreign investors, lenders, and financial institutions entering India's regulated banking, NBFC, and payments space, covering entity structuring, FEMA and sectoral FDI compliance, RBI approval pathways, and coordination with Indian regulatory counterparts through to operational launch. We support clients across the full regulatory lifecycle, not just at the point of licensing or a single transaction. This spans conventional banking and NBFC advisory alongside new-age requirements: FinTech advisory, Lending Service Provider (LSP) structuring under RBI's digital lending framework, and data protection frameworks and related audits and compliances. This allows a client to engage us once, at registration, at a transaction, or at a compliance review, and rely on continuity of advisory as their regulatory obligations evolve.
We work with several FinTechs and Financial Organisations, including, but not limited to, Mastercard, Tide, BalanceHero, HCIN, MD Finance, Poonawalla, TATA Digital among others.