In a bid to expand Ola Money, Ola has acquired mobile payments firm Qarth. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded by Abhinav Srivastava and Prerit Srivastava, the Chennai based startup offers a multi bank IMPS mobile solution with app called X-Pay. The company claims to have tie-ups with 26 banks to enable customers to make ‘one-touch’ mobile payments or money transfers.
As a result of the acquisition, both the founders and the team of Qarth will join the Ola Money team to further build solutions for seamless payment. The X- Pay Android app will continue to exist and its technology will also be integrated into Ola Money to provide a similar functionality to its users. Launched in November last year, Ola Money enables you to make prepaid mobile phone recharge across all network operators in India and make money transfers.
Earlier this month, Ola shut down Ola Cafe and Ola Store. The mobile wallet space is become crowded with foray of new and prominent players like Flipkart which rolled out Flipkart Money Wallet. Amazon is also expected to launch it’s own digital wallet by Q2 2016.