Guidelines for Payment Gateways and Aggregators

India, is the largest consumer of mobile data in the world and has woken up & acknowledged the importance of data, its uses and security. The Government and judiciary have been taking a more pro-active stance on protecting consumer rights and balancing organisations’ interest when it comes to the fight (and freedom) for data and online transactions.

In this regard, on 17 September 2019, RBI released a discussion paper for regulating the activities of Payment Gateways and Payment Aggregators. The paper includes three options to address the current concerns on governance.

Option 1: Continue with the extant instructions with minor change in definition of T and clarify the applicability of the guidelines.

Option 2: Limited Regulation: Guidelines in respect of minimum net-worth, merchant on-boarding, timelines for settlement of funds, maintenance of escrow account, IT security.

Option 3: Full and Direct Regulation: Framework covering Authorization / Licensing, Capital Requirements, Governance, KYC / AML / CFT Provisions, Merchant on boarding, Customer Grievance Redressal & Dispute Management, Security, Fraud Prevention and Risk Management Framework.

To ensure continuous compliance, business models are expected to keep up with industry and sector-wise regulation and guidelines.

BDO India presents, Guidelines for Payment Gateways and Aggregators, highlighting some of the key requirements of the discussion Paper released by RBI and its impact on Payment Gateways and Payment Aggregators from a compliance perspective.

We hope you have an insightful read.