Credit and finance for MSMEs: B2B payments platform EnKash on Wednesday said it has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a payment aggregator license. Founded in 2018, EnKash said the license will help it “broaden its product offerings to millions of businesses for digital transactions.” The company helps businesses optimise their spending by managing all their finances in one place and reducing the time taken in making payments like utility, GST, bill payments, etc.
Yadvendra Tyagi, Founder, EnKash said the RBI’s in-principle approval reiterates the need for digital solutions to manage business cash flows in an efficient way to sustain growth and profitability. “This will help us streamline the cash flow process for businesses where they will be able to seamlessly consolidate their payable and receivable and make necessary actions around payments.”
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The company said it has helped over 1 lakh businesses to digitize and decentralize their corporate payments since its launch and has issued more than 8 lakh Corporate Cards that offer a range of business spends like travel, subscriptions, marketing, GST, procurement, and more.
Enkash had raised $20 million in a Series-B funding round led by Ascent Capital with participation from Baring India, White Ventures & existing investors in 2022. In the past, it had raised $3 Million from Mayfield India and Axilor Ventures. The company plans to further scale up its banking infra products with plug-and-play cards issuance stack, CardX, and expand its geographical presence on the international front.
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Enkash’s payment aggregator license announcement comes a day after fintech companies BharatPe and Hitachi Payment Services also announced getting the in-principle RBI’s approval for their payment aggregator licenses. Other fintechs that have already received the central bank’s approval for the license were Open, Razorpay, Cashfree, Mswipe, Easebuzz, NTT Data, 1Pay, Innoviti, Infibeam, PayMate etc.
The RBI back in March 2020 had released the payment aggregator framework which stated that all payment gateways are required to obtain a license to acquire merchants and offer payments service to merchants. Over 185 businesses had applied to RBI for the license out of which only a handful received the nod for a payment aggregator/ payment gateway license.
Meanwhile, India’s market for digital payments in the country had recorded around 71 billion payments in FY22, according to the data company Statista. The total transaction value is expected to grow at 22.03 per cent CAGR during the 2022-27 period resulting in a projected total amount of $53.59 billion by 2027.