Ola Acquires Mobile Payments Startup Qarth To top-up Ola Money

Cab hailing app Ola has acquired Chennai-based mobile payments startup Qarth, reported TechCrunch. The acquisition is done in a bid to strengthen Ola’s mobile wallet service Ola Money.

Founded in 2012 by Abhinav Srivastava and Prerit Srivastava, Qarth, runs a mobile payments app called X-Pay, which is a Multi Bank IMPS Mobile Payment application. The application facilitates mobile payment to anyone with IMPS enabled bank account across India.

After the acquisition, the co-founders will join Ola Money along with their present team.

Anand Subramanian, senior director, marketing communications at OLA said, “With acquisitions like Qarth, we are investing in building seamless digital payment solutions. As we work towards our mission of building mobility for a billion people, we will continue to build the best in class payment experience for our users.”

Apart from paying for Ola rides, Ola Money is used to pay at other online platforms such as Lenskart, Oyo Rooms, and Zopper, etc.

This is Ola’s second investment to top up its mobile wallet Ola Money. Last year, Ola acquired a minority stake in its wallet partner Zipcash Card Services, a semi-closed digital wallet service. However, launch of new services does not  guarantee profitability, as evident from Ola’s shut down of food-delivery service ‘Ola Cafe’ and ‘Ola Store’ earlier this month.

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