100. 2025 Wrap — FinTech Realm

I. Licenses

A. PA License

In 2025, 19 entities received final authorization from RBI; so far 61 entities have received PA-Online, PA-Physical and/or PA-Cross Border license.

As new Master Directions allowed authorized PA to commence a new type of PA business by intimating RBI. So many PA-Os have become PA-P and PA-CB.

• Cross-Border specialized entities that received in-principal authorization: Skydo, EximPe
• Interesting entities that received in-principal authorization: IRCTC Payments, Aditya Birla Capital Digital,
• After almost two years of embargo, PayTM received final authorization from RBI
• 29 entities waiting for PA-O license and 10 entities waiting for PA-CB license.

If 2025 is the year of license and simplified process to start new types of PA business, then 2026 will be the year of returning licenses and shutting down businesses.

B. Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) Licenses

In 2025, six entities received PPI license, totalling 51 PPI issuers.

The big name to receive the PPI license in 2025 is global FinTech giant, Revolut. Looks like Revolut is gearing up to participate in the UPI ecosystem with the PPI wallet.

C. Surrendering Licenses

• Feb-2025, PhonePe surrendered Account Aggregator (AA) License

III. Funding and Acquisitions

a. Major Fundings of this year:

Cashfree ($53 M), Juspay ($60M), Easebuzz ($30M), Cred ($75M at half of its previous valuation), Decentro (Rs.30 Crore), Belong ($5M), Kiwi ($25M), TransBnk ($25M), Snapmint ($125M), Dhan ($120M), Skydo ($10M), FIbe ($35M)

b. Major Acquisitions of this Year:

PayU buys 43.5% of Mindgate (UPI Infra provider), ICICI Bank sold its stake of IMSL to First Data, RazorPay acquired majority stake in POP UPI App, PhonePe acquired Gupshup’s GS Pay technology, Jio Financial Services acquired shares from SBI to fully own Jio Payments Bank.

Amazon Vs Flipkart: Flipkart received an NBFC license whereas Amazon acquired Axio. Amazon infused $30M in Amazon Pay and Flipkart pumped $30M in Super.money

c. IPO Update:

• In November, Pinelabs and Groww went IPO.
• PhonePe and RazorPay changed domicile to India and became ‘Public Limited’ — Ready for IPO

III. Payments Ecosystem

A. Juspay Vs Payment Aggregators

PhonePe, Razorpay, Cashfree, PayTM and PayU decided that they will not support merchants via Juspay’s Orchestrator.

The fragile & uncomfortable equilibrium that existed between Payment Aggregators and Juspay was shaken, and created chaos!

B. BIMA — ASBA

In Feb-2025, IRDA mandated all Life and Health Insurers to implement BIMA-ASBA (Bima application supported by Blocked Amount) where UPI One-time Mandate is used.

C. ICCL Cut off time change

Effective 23-Apr-2025, ICCL changed settlement time for Liquid Funds ( from 12:30 PM to 1PM) and for Non-Liquid Funds ( from 2PM to 2:30PM) effective from 23-Apr-2025.

If payments in other sectors is like Football or cricket then payments in Mutual Funds is like Quidditch.

D. MasterCard stopped Money Send

In June-2025, MasterCard stopped its Money Send product (used to push funds to MasterCard cards). One piece of news that nobody bothers with, including MasterCard :)

E. Gaming Ban

In August-2025, the Indian Government banned real-money games under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill (2025). Apart from gaming merchants, the ban impacted many PAs and FinTechs as ‘gaming’ is one of the profitable sectors.

F. Simpl Ban

In September-2025, RBI ordered Simpl, ‘Icchadhari (Shape Shifter) FinTech’, to cease all payment operations. Simpl is not a simple model, they were doing a lot of things without being authorized PA or NBFC.

G. Rent Payment stopped:

In September-2025, all major FinTechs (PhonePe, Cred, PayTM) stopped the rent payment business. Possible reasons are high frauds, no end-to-end trail of money, card to cash, lack of KYC of house owners.

H. Inter-operable Regulatory Sandbox (IoRS)

In September-2025, five regulators (RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, IFSCA, PFRDA) came up with Inter-operable Regulatory Sandbox (IoRS) that will enable FinTechs to test hybrid products that fall under different regulators.

In the IoRS model, there would be a Principal Regulator (PR) (under whom dominant feature will fall) and Associate Regulator(AR) (under whom non-dominant feature will fall).

I. Valid VPA for SEBI regulated entities

In October-2025, NPCI & SEBI rolled out standard payee VPA with verified symbol (green thumbs up) for SEBI regulated entities (stock brokers, AMCs, investment advisers etc.)

J. Global FinTech Festival — 2025

In October-2025, we witnessed GFF-2025… one of the biggest FinTech events in the world with the number of participants, booths, and footfall.

And this time, every FinTech and Payments company was dressed as an AI Company :)