New Delhi, Jan 25 (IANS): Online food delivery platform Zomato on Thursday announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Zomato Payments Private Limited (ZPPL) has been granted a certificate of authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as an 'Online Payment Aggregator'.

The authorisation came into effect from January 24.

"We wish to inform that ZPPL has been granted a certificate of authorisation dated January 24, 2024, from the RBI to operate as an ‘Online Payment Aggregator’ in India with effect from January 24, 2024, as per the guidelines issued by the RBI," Zomato said in an exchange filing.

With this, Zomato Payments has expanded its role beyond food delivery and restaurant discovery into the realm of digital payments.

Apart from this recent development, Zomato had partnered with ICICI Bank last year to introduce its own unified payments interface (UPI), Zomato UPI.

Earlier this month, Zomato introduced a new feature called "daily payouts" to support emerging restaurant partners.

Currently, the feature will be available for restaurant partners who receive 100 or fewer orders a month, according to the company.

"Our discussions with various restaurant partners highlighted the financial challenges smaller eateries face, using the traditional weekly payout system. This feature is designed to address this critical need for more frequent access to earnings," Zomato said in a blogpost.