According to reports, Fintech unicorn BharatPe has received in principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as an online payment aggregator, joining fintech platforms such as Open, Infibeam, Cashfree, Paysharp and Worldline ePayments which already have such approvals in place.

BharatPe says, “Resilient Payments Pvt Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of Resilient Innovations Pvt Ltd, the company that functions the BharatPe platform, received the RBI authorization.”

The banking regulator’s final go-ahead is subject to fulfillment of certain conditions as per the company.

“The company will start work on meeting the conditions within the prescribed timeline and launch its online payment aggregator business after receiving the final clearance,” adds BharatPe.

According to BharatPe it had already built a network of 10 million merchants across more than 400 cities.

Meanwhile, end-to-end payment solutions provider Hitachi Payment Services also has received in principle nod from RBI for a payment aggregator licence.

In March 2020, the RBI released the payment aggregator framework, wherein all payment gateways were required to obtain a licence to acquire merchants and offer them payments services.

Besides, at least 185 fintech companies, including big names like Cred, Razorpay, and PhonePe, submitted proposals seeking the licenceas per reports.

Moreover, not all those applying for the licence got clearances from the central bank. In November, the RBI had asked Paytm to reapply for the licence within 120 days.

Nalin Negi, chief financial officer of BharatPe says, “This in principle approval will help catapult our expansion plans and enable us to reach out to millions of more unbanked and underserved merchants, provide digital payment acceptance solutions and in turn, get them to be a part of the Digital India story.”