The Board of Zomato Payments, a wholly owned subsidiary of Zomato, at its meeting held on 13 May 2024 has decided the following:
- to voluntarily surrender the certificate of authorization issued by RBI to operate as an online payment aggregator; and
- to withdraw the application dated 11 November 2021 submitted with the RBI to operate as the issuer of pre-paid payment instruments.
The company said, "Thanks to RBI's efforts, the payments landscape in India has evolved meaningfully over the past couple of years since the time we applied for these licenses. This has over time, therefore, resulted in a seamless payment experience for customers. At Zomato, we do not see ourselves having a significant competitive advantage against the incumbents in the payments space and hence we don't foresee a business in payments space as commercially viable for us, at this stage. While we were conscious of these developments as they unfolded, the real impact was more apparent as we got closer to putting in place the structure to commence the operations. "