‘BharatPe can operate as payments aggregator’

Malvika Maloo

malvika.maloo@livemint.com

Fintech major BharatPe has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as an online payments aggregator, Resilient Innovations Pvt. Ltd, the parent of the Gurugram-based firm, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“This in-principle approval will help catapult our expansion plans and enable us to reach out to millions of merchants and provide digital payment acceptance solutions,” Nalin Negi, the interim chief executive of BharatPe, said.

The development follows a slew of high profile exits at the Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital-backed fintech unicorn. It is fighting a legal battle with co-founder Ashneer Grover, who was ousted in March 2022 on allegations of financial misappropriation.

Payment aggregators facilitate payments for e-commerce sites and merchants through various payment instruments from customers, and the merchants do not need to create a separate payment integration system of their own.

RBI had issued a payment aggregator framework, mandating payment gateways to get a license for acquiring merchants and offer digital payments solutions.

Over 185 fintech enterprises and startups submitted proposals for a payment aggregator licence. Razorpay, Pine Labs, Open, Cashfree and 1Pay among others have received RBI approval.

The final authorization will be subject to fulfilment of certain conditions, and work will start to meet those obligations within the given timelines, BharatPe said.

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BharatPe, founded in 2018, began by launching the first interoperable UPI code. It serves more than 1 crore merchants across 400+ cities. The company’s board is currently scouting for a chief executive to replace for Suhail Sameer, who resigned from his position. Negi, who is the company’s Chief financial officer, has been appointed interim CEO. He has earlier worked with GE Capital and SBI Card.