Online payment gateways Razorpay, Stripe and Pine Labs have received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a payment aggregator (PA) licence.

As per the payment aggregator framework, introduced formally in March 2020, firms need RBI approval for acquiring and offering payment services to merchants.

The companies authorised to operate as payment aggregators will directly come under the supervision of the RBI. 

If e-commerce and other players do not have a licence, they will have a tie-up with a bank that can aggregate payments on their behalf. If not with banks, they will have to depend on a PA.

A payment aggregator provides payment services for merchants and e-commerce sites by accepting payment instruments from customers. They pool the funds received from customers and transfer them to merchants after a certain time.

Under RBI’s evaluation process, more than 185 fintech enterprises and startups submitted their proposals for a PA licence.