Credit and finance for MSMEs: B2B payments company PayMate is the latest to join the list of fintechs with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) approval to operate as a payment aggregator. The company on Thursday announced getting the in-principle authorization from the central bank to operate as a payment aggregator subject to the guidelines on the regulation of payment aggregators and payment gateways dated March 17, 2020.
Ajay Adiseshan, Chairman and Managing Director, PayMate said with digital payments fast becoming ubiquitous, these measures buoy customer confidence and trust and help us adopt appropriate frameworks for managing risk. “Furthermore, this will allow us to continue innovating our digital platform solutions & capabilities that enable businesses ranging from SMEs to Enterprises across all industry verticals.”
PayMate digitizes, automates and streamlines B2B payments in supply chains. Its platform provides upgradation from traditional paper-based workflows to software-driven workloads with digital payment streams like digital invoicing and other features. Its commercial credit card-processing TPV (transaction processed value) for FY2021 was Rs 18,714 crore and Rs 46,476 crore in the nine months ended December 31, 2021. As of December 31, 2021, the total number of customers and users using the PayMate platform was 166,811.
RBI in March 2022 had issued a framework for payment aggregators in India and mandated to obtain a license for acquiring merchants and providing them with digital payment acceptance solutions. Payment aggregator provides an easy and affordable way of accepting payments to help small businesses adapt to digital ways in a streamlined manner.
Importantly, the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das in his monetary policy speech in September this year had proposed that the central bank’s regulations for online payment aggregators (PAs) will be extended to offline payment aggregators as well who handle proximity or face-to-face transactions. Razorpay, Cashfree, Mswipe, Easebuzz, NTT Data, 1Pay, Innoviti, Infibeam etc., are other fintechs that have received RBI’s approval for payment aggregator license.
