Zoho, Juspay, Decentro get RBI nod to operate as payment aggregators

A Payments Aggregator, or PA, license, allows companies to provide payment services for merchants (online businesses or e-commerce firms) by accepting payment instruments from customers.

Fintech firms Juspay and Decentro and software-as-a-service company Zoho have received the final authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as payment aggregators.

With this, the three players join the likes of Stripe, Zomato and Tata Pay who were a part of the regulator's approval list in January, besides fintech majors like Razorpay and Cashfree who secured the licence last year.

The approvals came on February 6.

A payments aggregator, or PA, licence allows companies to provide payment services to merchants (online businesses or e-commerce firms) by accepting payment instruments from customers.

As part of the process, PAs pool the funds received from customers and transfer them to merchants after a certain time period.

Backed by Y Combinator, Decentro allows neo-banks, marketplaces, and fintechs to integrate and offer banking solutions via its APIs, while Juspay operates as a full-stack payment gateway that can offer card, wallet and UPI-based transactions.

Zoho is among the rare enterprise SaaS firms to secure the much-awaited payments licence.

The regulator has been cautious in handing out the PA licences with stringent criteria.

Instamojo, Paytm Payments Services, Freecharge were among many players whose applications were returned as they failed to fulfil the eligibility criteria and were directed to halt new merchant onboarding.

Ffintech major PhonePe, Infibeam, Pine Labs and Easebuzz, await the final nod after being granted the in-principal approval, while application of Cred (Dreamplug Paytech) and PayU remain under process, February 2024 data shows.