The Reserve Bank of India released guidelines for regulating payment aggregators (PAs) and payment gateways (PGs), nearly six months after it first proposed regulating these entities in a discussion paper.

Payment Aggregators (PAs)

• PAs are entities that facilitate e-commerce sites and merchants to accept various payment instruments from the customers for the completion of their payment obligations.
• PGs are entities that provide technology infrastructure to route and facilitate the processing of an online payment transaction without any involvement in the handling of funds.
• With the new set of guidelines PAs and PGs such as Paytm, Pay Pal, Mobikwik, Razorpay, PayU, CCAvenue etc. will be regulated by RBI to ensure the safety of all our online transactions.

What are the new guidelines?

The new guidelines say that-

• A payment aggregator (entities that facilitate e-commerce sites and merchants to accept various payment instruments) should be a company incorporated in India under the Companies Act, 1956 / 2013.
• Non-bank entities offering payment aggregator services will have to apply for authorisation on or before June 30, 2021.
• E-commerce marketplaces providing payment aggregator services will have to be separated from the marketplace business and they will have to apply for authorisation on or before June 30, 2021.
• Pas existing today will have to achieve a net worth of ₹15 crore by March 31, 2021 and a net worth of ₹25 crore by the end of third financial year, which means or before March 31, 2023.
• The net-worth of ₹25 crore shall be maintained at all times thereafter.

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