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IRCTC looks to expand fintech footprint with new payment aggregator subsidiary

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The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has incorporated a new subsidiary which focuses on payment aggregator business, according to the company’s disclosure with the stock exchange. The disclosure comes months after the company initiated the process to acquire a payment aggregator license with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). IRCTC had then also launched an in-house payment gateway, called iPay. The gateway brings an additional layer to the payment process allowing users to book tickets through autopay, debit card, credit card, and net banking, among others. “On the iPay platform, [the] number of payment transactions handled during this quarter is 1.54 crores. It has increased by 12.94% over the previous quarter and by 36% increase over the previous year. Payment aggregator license is in the process of getting this license from RBI, and as recommended by RBI, we are in the process of forming a subsidiary for this iPay license,” IRCTC managing director and chairman Seema Kumar had said in August 2023 during an earnings call. The payment aggregator business is likely to allow the railway ticketing platform to further expand its fintech capabilities with deeper synergy with partner merchants, and most likely diversify services and products on its platform. In case you did not know, the RBI had introduced a new licensing regime for payment gateways in 2020. The move was aimed at better compliance and regulations in the fintech industry. “PAs are entities that facilitate e-commerce sites and merchants to accept various payment instruments from the customers for completion of their payment obligations without the need for merchants to create a separate payment integration system of their own. PAs facilitate merchants to connect with acquirers. In the process, they receive payments from customers, pool and transfer them on to the merchants after a time period,” the RBI explained in its original notification. Since then, quite a few companies have received the PA license. This includes fintech firms like Razorpay, Cashfree, and Decentro.