Ola acquires IIT Madras incubated payments startup Qarth to strengthen Ola Money

The founders, Abhinav Srivastava and Prerit Srivastava, will make the move to Ola, bringing along their multi-bank IMPS solution

App-based taxi hailing service Ola has acquired Chennai-based payments solution Qarth Technologies, which was incubated out of IIT Madras, to strengthen its own payment platform Ola Money.

The founders - Abhinav Srivastava and Prerit Srivastava - along with the rest of the Qarth team will make the move to Ola, bringing along their multi-bank IMPS solution. The firm has built an app X-Pay for Android that integrates with 26 banks to allow its users to transfer funds between them.

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed but Ola will look to integrate Quarth's solution with its own wallet service Ola Money, bringing similar functionalities to it. It is not known if Ola will allow X-Pay to function independently.

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"We are thrilled about the possibilities that emerge for our customers who use Ola Money across a wide range of merchants online and offline. With the acquisition of Qarth, we are also making significant technology investments to build forward looking digital payment solutions for the ecosystem," said Pallav Singh, senior vice president and head of Ola Money, said in a statement.

Apart from strengthening its technology platform with the acquisition, Ola has acquired new partners such as the Mumbai Metro and Rajasthan's state transport corporation to allow its users to pay for fares using Ola Money. The app already supports prepaid mobile recharges, money transfer and partners with merchants such as Cafe Coffee Day, Cleartrip and others to accept payments.