Global payments company PayPal is reportedly looking to get a wallet licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Economic Times reported citing sources. Note that there have been several reports of PayPal trying to get a license through the acquisition of Snapdeal-owned FreeCharge. Meanwhile, the company is also reportedly in talks to invest in Flipkart-owned PhonePe. Whichever route it takes, the signals are there: Paypal is interested in a wallet license in India. The RBI has stopped considering fresh applications for PPIs since September 2016, till the time it lays down new guidelines for wallets, but the Economic Times says that PayPal might have applied for it earlier. The company has missed the new batch of licences which includes Amazon and Pine Labs. It is interesting to see that the three major e-commerce players in India - Amazon, Flipkart and FreeCharge - have complementary payments business by getting a wallet licence. As such, it looks like PayPal is now trying to play catch up. MediaNama has written to PayPal for a confirmation and will update once we hear from them. Here is a look at why PayPal is looking at a wallet licence now 1. It's all about the merchants: Merchant services (as opposed to P2P payments) accounted for around 85% of Paypal’s total volume in the last quarter; it wants to be more than just a payments option for a merchant: “from predominantly being a button on our left side to now being fundamental underlying platform provider to merchants as they…
