Amazon Pay, 31 other payment aggregators get RBI nod to continue operations

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday said it has granted in-principle approval to 32 existing payment aggregators, allowing them to continue their operations.

Amazon (Pay) India Pvt Ltd, Google India Digital Services Pvt Ltd, Reliance Payment Solutions Ltd and Zomato Payments Pvt Ltd are among the notable entities whose names are present in the list published by the RBI on Wednesday, of those existing payment aggregators, who have been granted in-principle approval to continue their operations.

PayTM Payments Services and PayU Payments Private Limited are the entities whose application to continue as payment aggregators has been returned by the RBI.

However, they are allowed to apply within 120 days from the date of return, and thus, can continue business subject to the condition that no new merchants should be onboard by them until advised otherwise.

The central bank had earlier issued circulars dated March 17, 2020 and March 31, 2021 on guidelines on Regulation of Payment Aggregators and Payment Gateways.

Applications of 18 existing payment aggregators, including that of Bhartipay Services Private Limited, is under process, the RBI said.

Online non-bank payment aggregators, existing as on March 17, 2020 were required to apply to RBI by September 30, 2021 for seeking authorisation under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (PSS Act).

They were given another extension to submit their applications by September 30, 2022.

Paytm spokesperson said, "PPSL is already in the process of reapplication for a Payment Aggregator license, as we have mentioned in our Q3 earnings release. As we had shared earlier, this does not have any material impact on OCL’s online business and revenues. For offline business, OCL can continue to onboard new merchants and offer them payment services including All-in-One QR, Soundbox, Card Machines, etc."

--IANS

ans/pgh