RBI to regulate payment gateways, aggregators directly to make digital payment safer

Assessing payment gateway operators and aggregators growing importance in India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is exploring a possibility to bring them under its direct regulatory ambit.

The central bank plans to come out with a discussion paper on comprehensive guidelines covering payments-related activities of these entities. It will be placed in the public domain for consultation with stakeholders said the RBI.

The move is to make payment gateways such as Paytm, Mobikwik, Bharat Bill and aggregators like BillDesk, PayU India, CCAvenue, Razorpay more accountable and secure for consumers.

RBI has also held talks with stakeholders talking about their importance and required measures need to be taken to avoid become a failure in the industry.

In an earlier advisory to e-wallets dated March 30, 2017, the central bank had asked payment gateways and aggregators required to route their transactions only through a nodal account opened with a bank under Reserve Bank's guidelines of November 24, 2009.

The 2009 guidelines further added that all accounts opened and maintained by banks facilitating the collection of payments by intermediaries from customers of merchants, shall be treated as internal accounts of the banks.

While it is left to the banks to decide on the exact nomenclature of such accounts it shall be ensured that such accounts are not maintained or operated by the intermediaries.

The guidelines mentioned that it addresses only a few specific aspects of their functioning then.

Last month, in another digital payment push, RBI had launched the Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions (OSDT) for redressal of complaints against System. It promises to provide free of cost redressal mechanism to grievances raised by customers for digital transactions undertaken by them through mobile wallets or tech-enabled payment companies.

Now, with proposed regulations, existing payment players think the move would make payment faster and safer benefitting consumers, who use them for making digital payments.

Meanwhile, the payments industry expects the RBI to address issues related to grievance redressal for failed transactions, security of consumers data and regulatory mechanism to identify serious players.

The information regarding the development sourced from TOI and ET reports.