Can Cashfree’s SME And Cross-Border Bets Solve Its Profitability Puzzle?

Cashfree Payments CEO Akash Sinha says payment licences alone are not enough, with India’s PA market dominated by a few large players with strong tech and enterprise scale.

After RBI-led disruption slowed growth, Cashfree is betting on SMEs, enterprise merchants, and cross-border payments to revive momentum.

While rivals push agentic AI commerce, Cashfree believes payments infrastructure, compliance, and profitability remain the real near-term priorities.

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The past two years have seen a rush for payments licences in India. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has handed out payment aggregator (PA) and payment gateway (PG) authorisations in rapid succession to a host of companies. 

From PhonePe to BharatPe and from Cashfree to Razorpay, more than 55 companies (fintech and otherwise) now have PA licences. MobiKwik, Paytm, Zoho, Juspay, Decentro, CRED, PayU, Enkash, Pine Labs, Amazon Pay, Innoviti, Razorpay, CC Avenue, Tata Pay, Google Pay, Infibeam Avenues, and Mswipe are among the other contenders in the PA space.

But Akash Sinha, CEO and founder of Cashfree Payments, argues that obtaining a licence is merely the floor and not a competitive moat. This is why even after the rush for licences post the RBI crackdown on the non-compliant onboarding of merchants in 2022 and 2023, the PA ecosystem is largely dominated by 3-4 players, Sinha added. 

But Akash Sinha, CEO and founder of Cashfree Payments, argues that obtaining a licence is merely the floor and not a competitive moat. This is why even after the rush for licences post the RBI crackdown on the non-compliant onboarding of merchants in 2022 and 2023, the PA ecosystem is largely dominated by 3-4 players, Sinha added. 

Speaking to Inc42, Sinha noted that while the space appears ripe for disruption from the outside, the reality is starkly different.

“We have more than 50 such PAs, but the opportunity is very much limited to three or four players, who own more than 80% of the market share. That trend will continue because it’s not about owning the licences, but the products and the tech,” he said.

“We have more than 50 such PAs, but the opportunity is very much limited to three or four players, who own more than 80% of the market share. That trend will continue because it’s not about owning the licences, but the products and the tech,” he said.

An RBI licence, which has its........

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