RBI grants more time to payment aggregators

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed an additional window for payment aggregators whose applications for authorisation were rejected over failure to meet the minimum net worth criteria.

The original deadline to submit applications was September 30, 2021. However, it was observed that applications received from some payment aggregators had to be returned as they had not complied with eligibility criteria, including the minimum net worth criterion of Rs 15 crore by March 31, 2021.

“Keeping in view the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to ensure smooth functioning of the payments ecosystem, it has since been decided to allow another window to all such PAs (existing as on March 17, 2020) to apply to RBI,” the central bank said.

In a new set of guidelines issued in March 2020, the RBI had mandated that all PAs shall be authorised by the central bank. For this, the regulator instructed non-bank companies offering PA services to apply for authorisation by June 30, 2021, which was later pushed to September 30, 2021.

The decision on granting the licence has made it important for all payment gateways including Razorpay, CCAvenue, Stripe, BillDesk, PayU, and Cashfree to acquire a licence to continue. The few firms authorised to operate as payment aggregators in India will come under the direct purview of the RBI.