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Axis Bank To Acquire Payments Wallet Freecharge For Rs 385 Crore

Axis Bank To Acquire Payments Wallet Freecharge For Rs 385 Crore

Highlights

  1. The acquisition will be an all cash deal worth Rs 385 crore
  2. Freecharge was reportedly in talks with PayTM earlier to finalise a deal
  3. Mobile wallet use in 2016-17 jumped to Rs 10,572 crore from Rs 224 crore
New Delhi: Country's third largest private sector lender Axis Bank entered into an agreement to acquire payments wallet Freecharge for Rs 385 crore in an all-cash deal.  The bank's managing director and chief executive, Shikha Sharma, told reporters that the agreement was signed earlier in the day and the deal is important from a strategic perspective for the bank. Axis Bank's chief financial officer Jairam Sridharan said the acquisition will double the customer base of the bank and leapfrog its digital journey by multiple years. He said the bank expects regulatory clearances to the deal in two months. Following this, the bank could consider merging their wallet businesses. Freecharge presently has a revenue of about Rs 80 crore, he added.

The bank has today entered into a share purchase agreement with Jasper Infotech Private Limited ('Snapdeal'), to acquire 100 per cent equity capital of Accelyst Solutions and Freecharge Payment Technologies (Accelyst and FPTPL collectively referred to as 'Freecharge'), subject to receipt of requisite regulatory approvals, including from the RBI, for a cash consideration of Rs 385 crore, it said in a regulatory filing.


Snapdeal had bought Freecharge in April 2015 for an estimated USD 400 million or over Rs 2,500 crore at current rates. At that time, this was touted as the largest deal in the nascent start-up ecosystem in India.

Earlier, Freecharge was reported to be holding discussions with Paytm (One97 Communications). However, the deal did not go through as the Alibaba-backed company was offering a much lesser price of about USD 15 million, one of sources said. Acquiring Freecharge's business would give Axis Bank access to about 52 million mobile wallet holders of Freecharge as well as about 150 to 200 professionals.

Also Read: Google Awaits RBI's Approval To Launch Its Digital Payment Service In India


 

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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About The Campaign

NDTV along with MasterCard is launching a multi-platform campaign “Cashless Bano India”, to create digital awareness and educate the masses about digital payment solutions for day to day transactions.

The campaign aims to take the message of a cash free India to the country, all while educating them on the ways and means to do it.

We aim to reach out to people and educate them on:

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3). Enabling merchants and consumers to understand and adopt secured and safe payment Solutions

4). Ease of usage at point of sales