RBI Grants Payment Aggregator Licence to CRED
With the approval, CRED—through its entity Dreamplug Paytech Solutions Private Limited—can onboard merchants, collect payments across various instruments, and manage settlements and refunds on their behalf.
CRED founder Kunal Shah
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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has granted final authorisation to fintech platform CRED to operate as a Payment Aggregator (PA), allowing the company to directly manage payment processing for merchants and customers under regulatory supervision.
With the approval, CRED—through its entity Dreamplug Paytech Solutions Private Limited—can onboard merchants, collect payments across various instruments, and manage settlements and refunds on their behalf. The authorisation places the company’s payment system directly under the RBI’s oversight, marking a significant regulatory milestone for the fintech firm.
The new licence adds to CRED’s existing Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) licence issued earlier by the RBI. The company’s group entities also hold a corporate agency licence from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), a registered investment adviser licence from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and a Third-Party Application Provider licence from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). These approvals indicate regulatory confidence in the company’s operating framework across multiple financial sectors.
During the financial year 2024–25, CRED processed payments exceeding INR 8.5 lakh crore for about 1.5 crore users described as creditworthy and affluent. The platform also handles more than one-third of all credit card bill payments in India.
According to CRED, it maintains internationally recognised security standards, holding both ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certifications. The company also undergoes more than 100 external regulatory and partner audits every year.
CRED founder Kunal Shah said, “Stakeholder trust has been central to how we’ve built CRED from the get-go; we’ve operated with a high bar for performance, reliability, transparency, and governance from day zero.”
He added that “the authorization to operate as a payment aggregator reflects the trust we’ve consistently built across the ecosystem.”
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has granted final authorisation to fintech platform CRED to operate as a Payment Aggregator (PA), allowing the company to directly manage payment processing for merchants and customers under regulatory supervision.
With the approval, CRED—through its entity Dreamplug Paytech Solutions Private Limited—can onboard merchants, collect payments across various instruments, and manage settlements and refunds on their behalf. The authorisation places the company’s payment system directly under the RBI’s oversight, marking a significant regulatory milestone for the fintech firm.
The new licence adds to CRED’s existing Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) licence issued earlier by the RBI. The company’s group entities also hold a corporate agency licence from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), a registered investment adviser licence from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and a Third-Party Application Provider licence from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). These approvals indicate regulatory confidence in the company’s operating framework across multiple financial sectors.
