CRED Gets RBI’s In-Principle Nod For Payment Aggregator Licence

Fintech unicorn Cred has reportedly secured an in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for its payment aggregator licence application. 

Citing two sources familiar with the development, TechCrunch reported that the startup received the nod earlier this week. 

CRED declined to comment on the development. 

The development comes at a time when the Kunal Shah-led startup is recording a robust growth in its operating revenue. For the financial year 2022-23 (FY23), the Bengaluru-based fintech reported a total revenue of INR 1,484 Cr, a 251% increase from FY22’s INR 422 Cr. 

However, its loss also grew 5% year-on-year to INR 1,347.4 Cr during the year. 

CRED has been on a spree to launch new products and features, including Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based peer-to-peer (P2P) payments system, a scan and pay feature, CRED escapes, and CRED Flash, to shore up its revenue over the last year or so. 

Earlier this year, CRED acquired investech platform Kuvera to enter the wealth management space.

With the PA licence, the startup can acquire merchants and deliver digital payment acceptance solutions. However, it would have to await the final approval from the RBI.

The PA framework was first introduced by the central bank in March 2020. The PA licence is mandatory for acquiring merchants and delivering digital payment acceptance solutions.

The development comes at a time when the central bank has been actively offering the PA licence to players in the digital payments space. Late last month, it awarded the PA licence to digital payments solutions company Innoviti and payment solutions provider Concerto Software and Systems. 

In February, ecommerce giant Amazon’s fintech arm Amazon Pay also received PA authorisation. The list of PA licence awardees for this year also include JusPay, Stripe, Tata Payments, Mswipe among others.