India: ED freezes Airpay account in Parimatch probe; 74 merchant companies named in order dated 03.09.2026

The key point for high-risk PSPs is that this is no longer just a settlement delay. India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) has frozen an Airpay Payment Services account inside the Parimatch investigation, and the order names 74 merchant companies tied to the payment chain now under review.

1. The freezing order is dated 03.09.2026 and says the Airpay Payment Services account was frozen as part of the Parimatch probe. In the appendix to the order, the ED lists 74 merchant companies.
2. The total amount in the list is ₹37,03,83,897, which is about ₹37 crore, or roughly $4.4 million. The ED says these merchants were onboarded through Airpay and were linked to the transactional chain being investigated.
3. That changes the operational picture. The issue is not just that a settlement is stuck; the payment rail itself has been frozen, and that rail was carrying funds for a large number of third-party companies.
4. According to market information cited by the source, the next target after the current Airpay action is expected to be PayU, possibly within the next few days. The source notes that this is not an official ED comment, but market intelligence.
5. For providers processing high-risk volume, the practical risk is not only blocked funds. Once a PSP is pulled into a case like this, recovery can take far longer than a few business days, and the source points to August last year, when a previous wave of raids left some providers effectively out of work for months.

The order does not mean the funds are automatically confiscated. It does mean the money is frozen and cannot be moved without permission. For operators, the immediate takeaway is straightforward: do not keep all India volume on a single payment setup just because it worked yesterday. Diversify providers and MIDs, keep a backup payment rail ready, know which legal entities and banks touch your flow, and review any dependency on providers that may end up inside the same investigation.