Zomato gets RBI's nod to operate as payment aggregator

Zomato can now function as a payment aggregator

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has granted a payment aggregator (PA) license to Zomato Payments Private Limited, the subsidiary of food delivery platform Zomato. The approval will allow the firm to facilitate ecommerce transactions through its platform.

"Pursuant to our earlier disclosure dated August 4, 2021, regarding the incorporation of Zomato Payments Private Limited (ZPPL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zomato Private to carry out the business, inter alia, as a payment aggregator and issuer of pre-paid instruments, we wish to inform that ZPPL has been granted the certificate of authorisation dated January 24,2024, from RBI to operate as a payment aggregator in India," the foodtech firm said in an exchange filing.

With this, Zomato joins the likes of Tata Pay, Razorpay, Cashfree among others to secure the much-awaited payments license.

Payment aggregators facilitate e-commerce websites, mobile apps, and merchants to accept payment instruments from customers for their transactions, without the need for merchants to create their own payment interface.

The regulator mandated that payment gateways will need to obtain an aggregator license to offer digital payment acceptance solutions.

Last year, the food delivery platform had tied up with ICICI Bank to launch its own Unified Payments Interface (UPI) offering--Zomato Pay.

The rationale was to reduce dependency on other payment apps like Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm for facilitating transactions. This allowed Zomato to save on merchant charges that come with payments made through third-party apps.

Besides paying for online food and grocery orders on Zomato and Blinkit, the foodtech also offers customers the option to pay at a few restaurants listed on Zomato using various options such as cards, net banking and UPI via Zomato Pay.

Previously, Zomato had also tied up with RBL bank for offering co-branded credit cards. However, the partnership was terminated in May last year.