Now, Hitachi Payment Services Gets Payment Aggregator Licence From RBI

Mumbai-based fintech major Hitachi Payment Services is the latest in a string of companies to become a licenced payment aggregator (PA) in India.

The company on Thursday (June 27) said it has received final authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as an online payment aggregator.

“This significant landmark enables the company to expand its digital solutions & services stack to encompass a comprehensive suite of innovative and merchant friendly payment options including UPI, Netbanking, Cards and Wallets along with value-added services such as EMI, Paylater, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), Link Based payments and loyalty solutions to merchants,” the statement said.

Founded in 2008, Hitachi Payment provides end-to-end payments and commerce solutions to financial institutions. Its offerings include UPI solutions, SoftPOS, value added services, AI & ML based solutions, next-gen mobile based merchant platform, UPI ATM on android platform and upgradable ATM.

The company claims it currently processes more than 2.5 Bn digital transactions annually for some of India’s leading banks and fintechs. Last year, Hitachi Payment launched its accelerator programme, HPX, to partner with fintech startups in the country to further innovation in the digital payment sector.

 The development comes at a time when a slew of companies have been making a beeline to secure PA licences from the RBI even as the regulator has proposed stringent regulations for online payment firms, which could increase their compliance burden and operational cost. 

In April, fintech unicorn CRED received in-principle from the RBI for its PA application. In May, French digital payments major Worldline’s India arm, Worldline ePayments India Pvt Ltd, also jumped the PA bandwagon.

In fact, since December last year, the RBI has greenlit the PA applications of more than 20 companies including the likes of Groww, Zoho, Juspay, Decentro, CRED, PayU, Enkash, Pine Labs, Amazon Pay, Innoviti, Razorpay, CC Avenue, Cashfree, Tata Pay, Google Pay, Infibeam Avenues, Mswipe, among others.

Earlier this year in April, the RBI issued draft papers to regulate online payment aggregators and sought feedback and comments from fintechs and industry bodies.

In response, a number of fintechs have voiced their concerns over the mandatory physical KYC verification requirement for merchants in the draft rules. 

While fintech players like Decentro have reportedly demanded a rollback of the contact point verification (CPV) requirement, there are some who want the RBI to limit physical KYC verification to “high-risk merchants.”