New Delhi: The Reserve Bank on Tuesday came out with draft guidelines to further strengthen regulations on payment aggregators, a move aimed at boosting the payment ecosystem.

The draft also covers the physical point-of-sale activities of payment aggregators (PAs).

The RBI said that given the growth in digital transactions and the significant role that PAs play in this space, the current directions on PAs are proposed to be updated and cover, inter alia, KYC and due diligence of merchants, operations in Escrow accounts, and intended to strengthen the payment ecosystem.

The payments ecosystem in India includes online PAs and PAs, which facilitate face-to-face/proximity payment transactions.

On KYC and due diligence, the draft said the payment aggregators should undertake due diligence of merchants onboarded by them in accordance with Customer Due Diligence (CDD) prescribed in Master Directions on Know Your Customer (MD-KYC), 2016.

"PAs shall ensure that marketplaces onboarded by them do not collect and settle funds for services not offered through their platform," said the draft on which the RBI has invited comments by May 31, 2024.

For face-to-face/proximity payment transactions done using cards, from August 1, 2025, the draft said no entity in the card transaction/payment chain, other than the card issuers and/or card networks, shall store the Card-on-File (CoF) data.

"Any such data stored previously shall be purged," the draft added.

The draft further said non-banks providing PA-P services should have a minimum networth of ₹ 15 crore at the time of submitting an application to the RBI for authorisation and a minimum networth of ₹ 25 crore by March 31, 2028.

The net worth of ₹ 25 crore shall be maintained at all times thereafter.

 

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Mullanpur (PTI): Rajasthan Royals defeated Punjab Kings by six wickets in their Indian Premier League match here on Tuesday.

Invited to bat, opener Prabhsimran Singh scored 59 up front while Marcus Stoinis provided the final flourish with an unbeaten 62 off 22 balls as Punjab Kings posted 222 for 4.

The Royals then put up a collective batting effort to overhaul the target with four balls to spare.

Earlier, leg spinner Yash Punja picked up two wickets for the visitors.

Brief Scores:

Punjab Kings: 222 for 4 in 20 overs (Prabhsimran Singh 59, Marcus Stoinis 62 not out; Yash Punja 2/41).

Rajasthan Royals: 228 for 4 in 19.2 overs (Yashasvi Jasiwal 51, Donovan Ferreira 52 not out; Yuzvendra Chahal 3/36)