Zomato Payments surrenders payment aggregator licence obtained earlier this year from RBI

Zomato Payments Private Limited, a subsidiary of the food delivery giant, has surrendered the online payment aggregator (PA) licence it obtained from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at the beginning of the year.

Zomato had also conducted an impairment assessment following Ind AS 36 guidelines, which resulted in the recognition of an impairment loss of Rs 39 crore in its profit and loss account, categorised as an exceptional item, on its investment in ZPPL.

Yourstory's queries to the company remained unanswered at the time of publishing this article.

"Zomato Payment Private Limited (ZPPL) has decided to voluntarily surrender the certificate of authorisation obtained by the ZPPL from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as an online payment aggregator under the Payments and Settlements Systems Act," the company said in its Q4 FY24 financial statement.

The foodtech company obtained the PA licence on January 25, 2024.

Further, ZPPL has opted to voluntarily withdraw its application with the RBI, previously granted in-principle authorisation, to operate as an issuer of prepaid payment instruments under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, and the Master Direction on Prepaid Payment Instruments.

However, ZPPL assured its investors that its other operations will persist.

Last year, Zomato became operational as a third-party application provider, offering payments through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The company collaborated with ICICI Bank to provide both merchant and peer-to-peer payments, as indicated on the National Payments Corporation of India's (NPCI) website.

Established in August 2021, ZPPL was created to provide digital payment services, including wallets and payment gateway services. The platform also features Zomato Pay, allowing users to make payments directly through the Zomato app at selected restaurants.