Razorpay aims to work with RBI on payment gateways’ norms

Razorpay aims to work closely with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on the new regulations for payment gateways and other policy-level issues, Harshil Mathur, co-founder and chief executive officer of the payments solution company, said in an interview.

RBI might bring payment gateways and payment aggregators under its direct supervision, according to a discussion paper released by the central bank last month. This would make it mandatory for these companies to comply with RBI’s entry point, technology, security, data storage and other norms.

Bengaluru-based Razorpay has hired Amitabh Tewary, a vice-president at Mastercard, as its chief innovation officer (CIO) to increase its engagement with bank and regulators. This follows Razorpay’s former CIO, Arif Khan, joining the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI) as its chief digital officer in February this year.

Tewary will be responsible for expanding the company’s footprint in other key markets and accelerating the adoption of new payment and banking platforms and products, according to a statement from Razorpay.

He will also play a key role in leading engagement with banks, networks, and regulators, it said.

“Tewary will also be responsible for dealing with regulators to ensure that we have a voice in how the ecosystem shapes up. So far, we haven’t dealt with the regulator directly, because we were small. Now we have scaled up and are a significantly important player in that space. It is important for us to have a direct voice with our regulator and give our viewpoint on where we think the industry should move, to work with them on the new regulations, and to ensure we abide by it and fall into the framework,” said Mathur.

“We expect the full one (guidelines) to come out by the end of the financial year. We want to be part of the journey. It is a welcome step. Before that, as payment gateways, we didn’t have a voice on the table. But now, with the regulations coming in, we will be able to work directly with the regulator on some of these things,” he said.

The leadership team aims to interact more closely and at a policy level with regulators, said Mathur.

The payments gateway has also hired Rahul Kothari of PayU India as its chief business officer.

Kothari will be responsible for strengthening the company globally as a full-stack business-to-business fintech platform, the company said.

Mathur said Razorpay has grown by “500% in the last 12 months” in terms of revenue and business volume, and he expects it to grow by another 400% this year.

“We expect to double the headcount (from 600 at present) in the next one year,” he said. The new hires will help the leadership team manage their three separate business units—payments, its lending arm Razorpay Capital, and neobanking platform Razorpay X, he said.

Founded by Mathur and Shashank Kumar, Razorpay is a part of well-known Silicon Valley tech accelerator, Y Combinator.

Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, YCombinator and Mastercard have invested a total of $31.5 million in the firm through Series A and B funding.

Razorpay has 33 angel investors and received $75 million in a Series C round from Sequoia India and Ribbit Capital this year, it said.