IRCTC boards the fintech express, eyeing a bigger retail and e-commerce play

India’s primary railway booking platform, which processes more than 50 crore train tickets annually, is gearing up to be a full-fledged payment aggregator in what is one of its many deliberate steps towards diversifying into a larger e-commerce player.

Beyond enabling 15 lakh daily ticket bookings and processing 87% of all reserved rail tickets in the country today, IRCTC is rapidly scaling up its catering services—it served more than 2.5 crore meals in FY25—and its premium travel and tourism services, which is the fastest-growing revenue segment for the company. Fintech expansion is the newest cog in its rapidly moving wheel.

Earlier in August, IRCTC Payments Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of IRCTC) received an ‘in-principle’ approval from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a payment aggregator (PA) under India’s Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. Provided it fulfills conditions mandated by the banking regulator, it will receive the final authorisation and PA licence—a process that could take up to 12-15 months, the IRCTC management confirmed during the Q1 FY26 earnings call last week.

The licence will allow IRCTC to legally operate as a payment aggregator (PA), handle multiple merchant transactions across sectors, and move money within its own systems without having to rely on third-party aggregators like Cashfree Payments, Razorpay, BillDesk, CCAvenue, PayU, and the like. Essentially, once the PA licence is granted, IRCTC will be able handle the entire payment flow—from collecting money from the customer and settling it into the merchant’s bank account to ensuring compliance with RBI guidelines.

It also means that customers can potentially enjoy faster checkouts at the booking page, fewer failed payments, and quicker refunds upon cancellations; IRCTC can also earn interest on funds held intermediately in its escrow accounts before settling the payments.

A PA licence would further allow the platform to expand beyond its core train ticketing and catering business to serve other external merchants, both government and private, even though payment aggregation is an intensely cluttered segment today, with at least 50-55 entities jostling for market share and another 30-odd waiting for RBI’s approval.