Groww secures online payment aggregator licence from RBI

TRI stands for Total Return Index

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has granted an online payment aggregator (PA) licence to Groww Pay, the UPI payments platform of broking firm Groww, according to the latest RBI data.

The licence, which was granted on April 29, will allow the financial services firm to facilitate ecommerce transactions through its platform through its UPI app, Groww Pay.

Meanwhile, payment solution provider firm Worldline ePayments India, part of Worldline group, also bagged its licence on April 30, the company said.

In an attempt to expand its financial services, Bangalore-based Groww, which largely offers investment and broking services to users, had rolled out UPI payments services through Groww Pay Private Limited feature-in July last year.

The company had received its third-party application provider (TPAP) licence last year and offered the services via banking partner Yes Bank.

The payments app has been focusing on bill payment services like electricity and water bills as well recharge DTH among other options, besides loan and credit card repayments.

The Tiger Global-backed stock investment firm has been eyeing opportunities in credit and payments space since last two years to retain its customers, primarily traders, and expand new base with new users. Prior to payments, it had  introduced lending on its platform (instant personal loans) and had secured NBFC license.

From late last year, multiple online payment gateway companies have been receiving RBI's final approval to be a PA, including Groww-backed identity verification startup DigiO which secured one in January.

These include PayU, Cred, Mswipe, Razorpay, CC Avenue, Cashfree, Zoho, Tata Pay, Google Pay, Decentro and EnKash among others.

An online PA licence allows companies to provide payment services for merchants (online businesses or e-commerce firms) by accepting payment instruments from customers.

After mandating non-bank payment gateways to acquire a PA license, the RBI recently decided to bring offline PAs under its regulatory purview as well.

Offline PAs are the ones that aid face-to-face merchant transactions via Point of Sale (PoS) machines and QR codes. The draft guidelines, which impose additional compliance and due diligence measures on PAs, are up for comments till May 31.