Zomato, an online meal delivery service, announced on Thursday that the Reserve Bank of India has authorised it to operate as a “Online Payment Aggregator.”
Following up on our August 4, 2021 disclosure, Zomato Limited (“the Company”), through an exchange filing, said, “We wish to inform that ZPPL has been granted a certificate of authorization dated January 24, 2024, from the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) to operate as a ‘Online Payment Aggregator’ in India with effect from January 24, 2024, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the RBI.” Zomato Payments Private Limited (“ZPPL”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zomato Limited (“the Company”), carrying out the business, among other things as a payment aggregator and issuer of pre-paid payment instruments.
When the markets closed, Zomato’s shares were trading in the red at ₹136.00. According to the BSE website, the company’s current market capitalization is ₹1,18,468 crore.
Struggling Journey and Success
In a stock exchange filing on Thursday, Zomato said that the authorisation comes into effect from January 24, 2024.
To recall, Zomato had incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary called Zomato Payments Pvt Ltd in August 2021 to comply with RBI regulations for payment aggregator services and payment gateway services. However, the latest notification from RBI did not mention about the payment gateway.
In May last year, Zomato collaborated with ICICI Bank to introduce its own unified payments interface (UPI) solution—Zomato UPI. Initially offered to select users without a KYC process, this feature streamlined the payment process for Zomato users, eliminating the need to switch to other payment apps like Google Pay, Paytm, and PhonePe while placing orders on the platform.
As an online payment aggregation platform, Zomato now operates alongside companies like Razorpay, Cashfree, Open, and Enkash.
Zomato’s Stock Market status
Zomato first earned a profit in the first quarter of FY24, having lost money since the company’s founding. In the second quarter of the current fiscal year, or Q2 FY24, the Deepinder Goyal-led company also witnessed an 18-fold growth in profit after taxes, to Rs 36 crore.
Compared to Rs 2,416 crore in the June quarter, the Gurugram-based company’s sales increased by about 18% to Rs 2,848 crore in the September quarter.
The share price of Zomato peaked in November 2021 at about Rs 155, then it fell below Rs 50 in July 2022. With a market valuation of more than Rs 1,17,000 Cr, or $14 billion, the company’s current share price of roughly Rs 136 apiece indicates that it is regaining pace thanks to strong financials and a favourable bottom line.
New initiative by Zomato
Zomato launched an initiative to provide professional, accredited training sessions to delivery partners so they may master the intricacies of medical first aid and CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). With this campaign, Zomato hopes to raise delivery partners’ knowledge of critical abilities that may be used to avert major harm or even death in medical situations.
Delivery personnel and the communities they serve stand to benefit from this training, according to the meal ordering and delivery platform.
Zomato has declared that it will supply over 3 lakh delivery partners with Altor’s Bluetooth-enabled helmets. The chin-strap lock status recognition, pre-set conditional limits for non-compliance, and helmet wear identification for human heads are just a few of the sophisticated features that this AI-powered hybrid system offers.
Together with free health insurance and income protection, Zomato offers each delivery partner ₹10 lakh in insurance coverage. Pregnancy-related costs, such as childbirth, can now be covered by maternity insurance plans for female delivery partners. On its site, Zomato counts over 300 individuals with impairments.
We are pleased to announce that 10,000 delivery partners have undergone professional first-responder training in the past several months, preparing them to assist with any emergency that may arise, including CPR and first aid. The distribution of Bluetooth-enabled helmets to delivery partners, together with today’s event, shows how committed Zomato is to their welfare and security, according to CEO of Food Delivery Rakesh Ranjan.
