India-based fintech CRED has received a payment aggregator licence from the Reserve Bank of India, expanding its merchant services scope.
The payment aggregator licence is set to enable the company to formally onboard merchants and manage end-to-end payment processing on their behalf.
The licence grants CRED the ability to sign up merchants, collect payments across multiple payment instruments, and handle settlements and refunds. Previously operating as a members-only rewards platform centred on credit card bill payments, the approval marks a meaningful extension of CRED's financial services footprint into merchant infrastructure.
Regulatory context and recent activity
The payment aggregator licence category is regulated by the RBI, which requires non-bank entities facilitating online merchant payments to obtain explicit authorisation. Several fintech firms have pursued this designation in recent years as India's digital payments ecosystem continues to scale.
CRED's authorisation follows a series of product expansions. In January 2025, the company launched a beta version of an eINR wallet in partnership with the RBI, enabling whitelisted members to make payments to UPI-linked bank accounts and transact with other central bank digital currency (CBDC) wallets. Users are required to complete a video KYC process and load their wallets via UPI. The wallet supports transactions above USD 5.77 without PIN authentication, with a daily transfer cap of USD 577.
At the time of that launch, other major digital payments players, including Google Pay, PhonePe, and Amazon Pay, were also seeking participation in the RBI's digital rupee programme, as reported in August 2024. Moreover, CRED's core platform restricts membership to users with a credit score of 750 or above, positioning it towards a creditworthy consumer segment. The company has also expanded into adjacent verticals, partnering with used-car marketplaces CARS24 and Spinny to allow users to sell vehicles through its platform.
The payment aggregator licence positions CRED to pursue merchant acquisition directly, adding a supply-side dimension to what has historically been a consumer-facing model.
