Cashfree Payments gains regulatory approval to operate as a PPI provider

Cashfree Payments joins a growing list of PPI providers. At present, the banking regulator has issued these licences to 46 entities

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Fintech firm Cashfree Payments on Tuesday said it has received regulatory approval to operate as a prepaid payment instrument (PPI) provider, enabling the firm to issue prepaid payment instruments like cards or digital wallets.

 

The Bengaluru-based company has already received the Payment Aggregator (PA) and Payment Aggregator-Cross Border (PA-CB) licences from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). 

 

Cashfree Payments has now joined the growing list of PPI providers in India, which has now soared to 46.

 

“The PPI licence opens up a new field of opportunity for innovation in the payments landscape. It will help us build offerings that let internet businesses retain and grow their user base,” said Akash Sinha, CEO and co-founder of Cashfree Payments.

 

In December last year, the company was authorised to operate as a payment aggregator, enabling it to on-board new merchants after a nearly one-year-old regulatory ban.

 

Then in July, the company received a nod to operate as a PA-CB nearly a year after the banking regulator issued a circular on the regulation of such entities. It was one of the first non-banks to receive the PA-CB licence. It claims to serve over 600,000 businesses and processes more than $80 billion in transactions annually. 

 

Cashfree Payments is backed by Silicon Valley investor Y Combinator, Apis Partners, State Bank of India (SBI), and was incubated by PayPal.

 

This month, Piramal Payment Services, a subsidiary of Piramal Capital & Housing Finance, also secured approval from the RBI to operate its prepaid payment instrument service named ‘Piramal Pay’.

 

PPIs are instruments that facilitate purchase of goods and services, conduct of financial services, enable remittance facilities, among others, against the value of money stored within themselves, according to the RBI.