RBI's PhonePe final payment aggregator approval resurfaces from September
PhonePe received final RBI approval to operate as an online payment aggregator back in September 2025, strengthening its enterprise payments offering across a network of 45 million merchants and more than 650 million registered users.
What happened
RBI granted PhonePe final approval to operate as an online payment aggregator, expanding its ability to serve enterprises and merchants. PhonePe says its
Key facts
- Over 650 million registered users
- 45 million merchants
- More than 360 million transactions daily
- Annualised total payment value of over Rs 150 trillion
- Over 50 firms have full RBI payment aggregator licences
- More than two years since in-principle clearance
Why this matters
The licence makes PhonePe a more strategically valuable payments partner or competitor for commerce platforms, banks and merchant-acquisition businesses seeking regulated checkout capabilities.
What to watch
- Announcements of major enterprise merchants adopting PhonePe as a payment gateway or checkout option.
- Reported payment-aggregator transaction volumes, online merchant additions, payment success rates and settlement-time metrics.
- Changes in merchant pricing, incentive spend or gateway market-share commentary from PayU, Razorpay, Cashfree, CCAvenue and bank-led acquirers.
- RBI guidance on payment aggregators, KYC, data localization, escrow, cross-border payments, lending partnerships or UPI monetization.
- Evidence that PhonePe converts its 45 million-merchant base into omnichannel and online-payment customers.
- New merchant-credit, reconciliation, fraud-prevention or commerce-software offerings tied to aggregator data.
- Launch or expand direct online-checkout, payment-link, subscription, settlement and reconciliation products for enterprise merchants.
- Target existing offline QR merchants with online-store and omnichannel payment-acceptance bundles.
- Offer commercial incentives, faster settlement or integration support to acquire high-volume retail, food delivery, travel and D2C accounts.
- Deepen bank, card-network and lending-partner integrations while emphasizing compliance, fraud controls and payment-success rates.
- Use merchant transaction insights to cross-sell business software, credit and advertising or discovery products where permitted.