India’s leading fintech platforms—PhonePe, Paytm, and CRED—have stopped offering credit card-based rent payments on their apps. Rent payments had become a popular but contentious way for users to earn credit card rewards in recent years.

The move follows the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) revised guidelines issued on September 15, 2025. Under the new rules, payment aggregators (PAs) are allowed to process transactions only for merchants with whom they have a direct contractual relationship. Since landlords are not registered as merchants, apps can no longer facilitate rent payments on their behalf.

The RBI circular clarified: “A PA shall aggregate funds only for the merchant with whom it has a contractual relationship. PA business shall not carry out marketplace business.”

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As a result, fintech firms have suspended rent payment services, and experts predict that other platforms, including NoBroker and Housing, may soon follow suit.

The updated regulations are intended to strengthen oversight of payment aggregators and enforce stricter Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance. However, this change will significantly impact both personal and business credit card users who relied on rent payments to earn reward points and meet spending milestones.

Even before the RBI’s directive, several banks and credit card issuers had already introduced additional fees to discourage rent payments via credit cards.

With this shift, tenants accustomed to using credit cards will now need to fall back on traditional payment methods such as UPI or direct bank transfers.

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