The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved 20 companies for payment aggregator licenses within the first four months of 2024. This includes major players such as Amazon Pay, Digio, CCAvenue, Decentro, MSwipe, Tata Pay, Zoho, and Zomato. These companies join the ranks of other major market participants such as Razorpay and Cashfree Payments, who received their licenses in December 2023.
The RBI defines payment aggregators (PAs) as entities that facilitate e-commerce sites and merchants to accept various payment instruments from customers. PAs enable merchants to connect with acquirers and receive payments from customers. They then pool these payments and transfer them onto the merchants after a time period.
In January 2023, the RBI asked Prosus-backed fintech PayU to reapply for a payment aggregator license due to its complex corporate structure. PayU received an in-principle approval from the RBI to operate as a payment aggregator last week. It usually takes six months to one year after the in-principle nod for a company to get the final approval from the regulator.