Fintech startup Citrus Pay has reportedly surrendered its wallet license as per the Reserve Bank of India’s latest list of entities holding prepaid payment instrument (PPI) licenses. An ET report states that its license was cancelled on April 19, 2017.
Gurugram-based online payment service provider PayU acquired online payment gateway Citrus Pay in September 2016. The deal was closed at $130 Mn making it, by far, the biggest M&A cash deal in Indian fintech.
Based in Mumbai, Citrus Pay was founded by Jitendra Gupta and Satyen Kothari in 2011. Prior to the acquisition, it had raised $33 Mn in four rounds of funding – undisclosed amount in Seed funding in 2012, $2 Mn in Series A in 2012, $5.5 Mn in Series B, 2013, and $25 Mn in Series C in 2015.
Post completion of the merger, Citrus Pay was supposed to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Naspers. Amrish Rau, MD, Citrus Pay, became the CEO of PayU in India. He was to report to PayU Global CEO, Laurent le Moal and lead the entrepreneurial management team across PayU and Citrus Pay.
Talking about the move Rau said, Citrus Pay’s customers will be migrated to the PayU Money wallet. He said, “We had to do it (surrender the license) since Citrus and PayU both had one. We have seamlessly migrated the Citrus consumers under the PayU license.”
In December 2016, it was reported that Paytm’s parent company, One97 Communications issued a public notice that it would be transferring its wallet business, after necessary approvals, to the newly-incorporated Payment Bank entity.
The Indian fintech market is forecasted to touch $2.4 Bn by 2020. According to a report by TechSci Research, the mobile wallet market in India is projected to reach $6.6 Bn by 2020. Other startups in this segment include MobiKwik, FreeCharge, Oxigen, among others.
