Ola buys minority stake in payment-tech firm ZipCash

Ola had tied up with ZipCash in August to allow third-party merchants to transact using its own digital wallet

India's largest taxi aggregator Ola, along with co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal, has bought a minority stake in payment-tech firm ZipCash as it looks to build out its own digital payment platform, Ola Money.

According to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies, Aggarwal bought a 2.56 per cent stake in ZipCash by investing Rs 1.2 crore in March, while ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd,  which owns Ola, backed up the investment with Rs 3.2 crore for a 3.4 per cent stake in June.

Ola had partnered with ZipCash, which holds a wallet license issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in August to allow third-party merchants to fulfil transactions using its own digital wallet.

As the payment-tech space heats up, several players are launching their own wallet services.

Just last month, Snapdeal and Freecharge jointly launched their own digital wallet service in order to take on market leader Paytm. Even Flipkart which is seen lagging behind in the payments space, picked up majority stake in payment services platform FX Mart in September.