One MobiKwik Systems Ltd has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India for its Payment Aggregator–Physical (PA-P) licence, enabling the fintech company to strengthen its offline merchant payments business across the country.
The approval marks a significant milestone in MobiKwik’s expansion as a full-stack fintech platform offering payments and financial services to both consumers and merchants.
Focus on merchant expansion
MobiKwik currently supports a network of 4.9 million merchants through products such as UPI QR, Soundbox and electronic data capture (EDC) machines.
The company said it has identified small businesses, oil and gas outlets and organised retail as its three strategic focus segments over the next 18-24 months. It aims to significantly scale up Soundbox and EDC deployments to achieve its target of 10-fold growth in merchant business by FY28.
Large market opportunity
According to industry estimates cited by the company, India’s offline merchant payments market represents a gross merchandise value (GMV) opportunity of $1.8-2 trillion by FY28.
Unlike consumer payments that largely operate on zero merchant discount rate (MDR) rails, offline merchant acquiring offers stronger MDR potential, subscription income and device rental opportunities while facing relatively lower competitive intensity.
Strengthening omnichannel payments
The company had also secured the Payment Aggregator–Online (PA-O) licence through its subsidiary Zaakpay around a year ago, strengthening its omnichannel merchant payment capabilities across online and offline commerce.
Co-founder, Managing Director and CEO, Bipin Preet Singh, said the PA-P approval would strengthen the company’s ability to scale merchant payment infrastructure and support its ambition of achieving 10x growth in merchant business by FY28.