Infibeam Acquires Cardpay To Expand Its Financial Services

Digital payment solutions startup Infibeam Avenues, on Monday (June 8), announced that it has acquired Bengaluru-based unified digital technology platform Cardpay Technologies Limited in an all-share deal.

Founded by Kumar Srinivasan, Cardpay offers a spending management platform for expense approvals, which includes physical and virtual credit cards to corporates, automated invoice payments, accounting automation and real-time reporting.

The company operates under the brand ‘GRIT’ and offers corporate cards with higher limits and higher reward points compared to traditional cards. It also claims that the company’s corporate credit cards are tailored to meet recurring business expenses of enterprises that generally find it difficult to get working capital loans for such expenses from banks and other institutions. GRIT cards offer an interest-free credit period as per the needs of the business.

Srinivasan, in the latest press release, added that the platform has been built with the aim to eliminate the inefficiencies in the corporate payments which directly impacts a company’s ability to drive its growth.

With this acquisition, Cardpay will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infibeam. However, Cardpay founders, Manik Singla and Srinivasan, and its team will continue to lead GRIT’s operations and spend management business. The company aims to grow credit services and issuance business in India and globally.

Besides this, Infibeam will incorporate Cardpay’s services into its own, allowing it to offer a complete suite of payments acquiring and payments issuing products, present on both sides of digital payment transactions.

Vishwas Patel, executive director and CEO Payments at Infibeam added that there are many startups and small, medium enterprises (SMEs) in India that require ongoing credit support to meet their recurring business expenses. “Cardpay’s technology and experience along with Infibeam’s suite of Fintech portfolio will provide all the solutions to merchants under one roof, allowing them to scale and prosper,” Patel added.

Infibeam was founded in 2007 by Sachin Dalal, Vishal Mehta and Neeru Sharma. It operates multiple businesses including payment gateway platform CCAvenue, a government emarketplace, enterprise platform BuildaBazaar,  Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) bill solution BIll Avenue, and data-center-as-a-service platform ResAvenue.

While announcing consolidated net profit at INR 25.9 Cr for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2020, the company has expressed its interest in entering into the card issuance business.

The Infibeam-Cardpay deal comes at a time when several Indian startups are looking for options to extend runways and get working capital. Some startups offering commercial credit cards and spend management solutions are EnKash, Karbon Cards, and Razorpay, among others. Even, Bengaluru-based neobanking startup, Open, has tied up with global card payment network Visa to offer a similar yet-to-be-launched credit card.

In May 2020, EnKash’s cofounder Naveen Bindal told Inc42 that his company received 25% more applications in April due to reduced cash flow. He expected a similar hike in May as well. Karbon Cards have also witnessed an increase in application numbers and increased usage among its existing customers.