“Can IRCTC leverage its monopoly position in Indian rail ticketing — 88% of reserved bookings and 70,000+ crore GMV — to become the dominant payment aggregation and embedded finance platform for Indian government services?”
Founded in 1999 as a government catering and tourism arm of Indian Railways, IRCTC became the sole authorized portal for online train ticket booking, commanding nearly 88% of reserved railway bookings by FY26. Over the 2020s, IRCTC has been systematically monetizing its massive transaction volume (70,000+ crore GMV) by building its own payment infrastructure (iPay), embedding financial products like travel insurance, BNPL/TNPL, and co-branded credit cards directly into the ticketing journey. The latest strategic move is establishing IRCTC Payments as a licensed Payment Aggregator targeting government clients, positioning the company to evolve from a ticketing portal into India's primary government-sector payments platform.
Irctc processes payments through IRCTC iPay (self-operated).
Irctc's lending and capital products are provided by CASHe.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 2 layers in Irctc's stack: Payments / PSP (IRCTC iPay (self-operated)); Lending (CASHe and Travel Now Pay Later (TNPL)).
Irctc is founded in 1999 and headquartered in New Delhi, India.
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