Tata Payments, Groww-Backed DigiO Secure Payment Aggregator Licence From RBI

Tata Group’s digital payments arm, Tata Payments, and Groww-backed identity verification startup, DigiO, have received payment aggregator (PA) licences from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). 

As per the data shared by the central bank, the approval was accorded on January 1. With this, the two platforms have joined the likes of Google Pay, Razorpay, and Cashfree in securing the much sought-after licence.

The approval will enable the salt-to-technology juggernaut to cut its dependence on its current PA partners that charge hefty amounts for payment collection services. 

It is pertinent to note that the Tata Group launched its digital payments app on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in partnership with ICICI Bank back in 2022. 

The licence could prove pivotal for Tata Payments’ parent, Tata Digital, as it scales up its super app ambitions and reportedly plans a ‘detailed financial services strategy’.

The RBI nod will also enable Tata Payments to better manage its funds as the licence allows a PA to directly pool the funds received from customers and transfer them to merchants after a certain time period. 

Tata Payments is the second payments arm of the conglomerate to get the PA licence. Earlier, Tata Communications Payment Solutions, which runs white label ATMs in rural India under the brand name Indicash, also secured the licence.

Meanwhile, DigiO is backed by Zerodha and Groww. A brainchild of Abhinav Parashar and Sanket Nayak, the startup was founded in 2016 and offers services such as identity verification, electronic signing, and recurring payments collection for businesses. 

While there is no clarity on what DigiO’s use case will be, the PA licence, as per reports, will enable the fintech SaaS startup to bundle in-payment services on top of its existing offerings. 

The approval comes weeks after fintech juggernauts Razorpay and Cashfree Payments, as well as neobank Open, received final approvals from the central bank to operate as payment aggregators. A week prior to that, the RBI also cleared the application for Juspay and granted the startup a PA licence. 

As per the latest RBI data, nine companies, in total, have received final approval from the RBI to operate as online PAs. Apart from that, 32 applicants have been granted in-principle authorisation to operate as a payment aggregator, including Zomato, Infibeam Avenues, and EaseMyTrip.