Shares of Infibeam Avenues Ltd., operator of payment gateway CCAvenue, rose 20% on Friday after it received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a payment aggregator.

The fintech company’s stock rose 19.72% to £17.30 on the National Stock Exchange.

The payment aggregator license will give the company a significant boost to further expand its reach across multiple business segments for both online and recently launched offline digital transactions, Infibeam Avenues says in an IPO filing.

The Reserve Bank of India issued a framework for payment aggregators in India in March 2022. Under this framework, payment aggregators are required to obtain a license to acquire merchants and provide them with digital payment acceptance solutions.

This was done primarily to ensure the safety of merchants and consumers. The payment aggregator also offers an easy and affordable way to accept payments to help small businesses adapt to digital avenues in a streamlined way.

“This is an important development as it fuels our vision and mission to build India’s largest digital payments infrastructure company. Our flagship payments brand, CCAvenue, is already one of the leading payment gateway brands in India, delivering premium digital products and services to most financial institutions, SMEs, MSMEs and merchants. With the trust of regulators in us, we promise ourselves to make all Indian Kiranas and merchants digital, credible and bankable,” says Vishal Mehta, Managing Director of Infibeam Avenues.

Infibeam claims to have the largest portfolio of merchant payment options with over 200 multi-currency payment options in India alone with a flow rate of ₹4 lakh crore annually through the platform.

Given its broad network across industries and massive transaction volume, Infibeam’s flagship brand CCAvenue is well positioned to capitalize on its new role as a payments aggregator, helping to bring a larger number of micro-entrepreneurs into e-commerce.

“We will ensure that safer digital payment innovations are deployed to serve and help grow millions of Indian merchants while making India a digital nation,” said Vishwas Patel, Executive Director of Infibeam Avenues.

The payments infrastructure company recently launched the CCAvenue mobile app, which can be downloaded onto any Android phone to turn any Android phone into a payment acceptance terminal without the need for a point-of-sale device.

Merchants can accept payments in various ways such as QR code, link-based payments as well as tap-to-pay, the company says, adding that this will help reach more offline merchants in India’s hinterland.

Infibeam Avenues provides marketplace software technology for large corporations and institutions, including Government eMarketplace (GeM) and JioMart.