Fintech platform BharatPe on Tuesday, January 10, said it has received in-principle authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as an online payment aggregator (PA). The company said the in-principle nod was awarded to Resilient Payments Private Ltd, a 100 percent subsidiary of Resilient Innovations Private Ltd (BharatPe).

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Nalin Negi, Chief Financial Officer and interim CEO of BharatPe, said, "At BharatPe, we have been committed to empowering offline merchants and kirana store owners in the country and have already built a network of one crore merchants across more than 400 cities."

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The payment aggregator framework, introduced formally in March 2020, mandates that only firms approved by the RBI can acquire and offer payment services to merchants. RBI has been strict in its evaluation of entities that have applied for the payment aggregator licence.

Multiple online payment gateways seeking the aggregator licence came under intense scrutiny from the central bank for – know-your-customer (KYC) related issues, past dealings with cryptocurrency exchanges and gaming apps, and for not complying with the net worth criteria that RBI had set out.

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)