PayU to onboard new merchants as it gets PA license from RBI

PayU has received in-principle approval from The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a payment aggregator. The nod will also allow the fintech firm to onboard new merchants on its platform.

Back in January 2023, the apex banking body (RBI) had asked PayU to reapply for the license and consequently, the Prosus-controlled firm had to halt onboarding new customers. As per reports, the fintech firm’s complex corporate structure was one reason behind the rejection.

RBI appears to have become hyper-active in the last few years as it has been hammering several segments such as PA-PG, peer-to-peer lending, buy now pay later (BNPL), abuse of credit cards and structure of non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs).

PayU is the latest firm to get RBI's nod along with a clutch of fintech firms including Razorpay, Cashfree, Open, EnKash,  Juspay, Infibeam et al.

As per an ET report, Cred also received payment aggregator license but the official confirmation is awaited from both sides (RBI and Cred).

PayU is one of the fintech firms along with MobiKwik, Pine Labs, and Navi among others, which have been eyeing initial public offerings.

In India, PayU has a base of over 5,00,000 merchants across three business sectors – payments, credit, and PayTech. It also claims to generate over $60 billion in annualised volumes (read as total transaction volume or TPVs).

PayU’s Indian entity reported more than 30% growth in its revenue to $400 million (Rs 3,300 crore) for the financial year ended in March 2023. Even in the current fiscal, the firm maintained the show with $211 million (Rs 1,700 crore) in revenue from Indian operations.