Zomato surrenders payment aggregator and wallet license to RBI

Foodtech major Zomato has decided to voluntarily surrender the payment aggregator and wallet license to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

In a filing, the company disclosed that its subsidiary Zomato Payments Private Limited (ZPPL) has decided to voluntarily surrender the certificate of authorisation obtained from the RBI to operate as an online payment aggregator under the Payment and Settlements Systems Act 2007.

To recall, Zomato had incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary (ZPPL) in August 2021 to comply with RBI regulations for payment aggregator services and payment gateway services.

The firm received the RBI’s nod to carry out business as payment aggregator and issuer of pre-paid payment instruments in January this year.

Zomato also wrote down its investment of Rs 39 crore in ZPPL, and declared it as an impairment loss.

In May last year, Zomato collaborated with ICICI Bank to introduce its own unified payments interface (UPI) solution—Zomato UPI. The feature was aimed to minimize the use of third party payment apps like Google Pay, Paytm, and PhonePe for payments.

On Monday, Zomato filed its financial report for the last quarter of FY24 or Q4 FY24. The firm reported Rs 175 crore profit after tax with a revenue of Rs 3562 crore. Overall, the company registered a 71% surge in its revenue to Rs 12,114 crore in FY24 from Rs 7,079 in FY23.

The Deepinder Goyal-led company also announced fresh employee stock option (ESOP) options for its employees under the new plan. As per Fintrackr estimates, the value of fresh ESOP stood at around $450 million.