Cred gets RBI's final nod to operate as payment aggregator

11 Mar 2026, 04:36 PM

With this, Cred now holds multiple regulatory licenses across payments, lending, insurance, and investments.

Team Head&Tale

Fintech company Cred has received the final approval to operate as a payment aggregator from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The authorization will allow the Kunal Shah-led company to onboard merchants, process payments on their behalf and manage settlements and refunds across payment instruments, said Cred in a statement.

With this, Cred now holds multiple regulatory licenses across payments, lending, insurance, and investments, it added.

Cred had received the in-principle approval to function as a payment aggregator in April 2024 from the central bank.

Last year in June, Cred raised around $72 million in a fresh funding round led by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC. The investment was made at a valuation of $3.5 billion, much lower than the valuation of $6.4 billion when it last raised capital in 2022.

In the past months, the RBI has been very active in handing out various payments-related licenses to big and small fintech startups.

For instance earlier in January, fintech major Razorpay secured the offline payment aggregator license (PA-P) from the RBI. In December, Razorpay had received the payment aggregator-cross border license.

In November last year, Pine Labs obtained all the mandated regulatory licenses needed to offer digital payments in the country. In December last year, Paytm also got the RBI approval to operate as a payment aggregator for in-person transactions and cross-border money transfers.

Smaller fintech startups such as PayGlobal and Easebuzz have also received cross-border payment aggregator approval from the central bank.

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