Resurfacing a December 2023 move: RBI had cleared Razorpay and Cashfree to resume payment-aggregator operations
Resurfacing from December 2023: The Reserve Bank of India had lifted restrictions on Razorpay and Cashfree, allowing both firms to operate as payment aggregators again—restoring a critical digital-payments capability for merchants and online retailers.
What happened
The Reserve Bank of India lifted restrictions on Razorpay and Cashfree, allowing them to operate as payment aggregators, restoring a key payments capability for
Key facts
- December 19, 2023
Why this matters
Razorpay and Cashfree’s return reopens partnership and integration options for commerce platforms seeking resilient, multi-provider payment infrastructure.
What to watch
- RBI publication details on the scope, duration, and conditions of the restored approvals.
- Merchant onboarding volumes, enterprise client wins, and transaction-volume recovery reported by Razorpay and Cashfree.
- Changes in authorization rates, UPI success rates, settlement cycle times, and payment-failure complaints after reactivation.
- Competitor responses from PayU, PhonePe, Paytm, CCAvenue, banks, and other payment aggregators, especially pricing or bundled-service moves.
- Further RBI enforcement actions or updated payment-aggregator compliance requirements affecting escrow, KYC, governance, or cross-border payment flows.
- Reassess payment-routing rules and restore Razorpay/Cashfree as eligible primary or secondary gateways where they improve authorization rates, UPI coverage, or settlement operations.
- Run a controlled reactivation test by merchant segment, measuring payment success rate, checkout abandonment, refund turnaround, chargebacks, and settlement reliability against incumbent providers.
- Use renewed gateway competition to renegotiate MDR-adjacent fees, platform charges, payout pricing, and value-added fraud or reconciliation services.
- Confirm that gateway contracts, escrow arrangements, data handling, KYC flows, and contingency plans meet internal compliance standards despite the regulatory clearance.
- Prepare promotional and inventory plans for higher conversion capacity during upcoming sale periods, particularly for D2C and marketplace sellers previously forced onto backup payment rails.