Digital payments company Benow, incubated by BSE-listed IT firm Mastek, has acquired Gurgaon-based Finmo and its flagship product DigiBharat in a cash-and-stock deal, a press statement said.
Following the transaction, Finmo’s existing merchants will be on-boarded to the Benow platform, the statement added.
Run by Evokio India Pvt. Ltd, Finmo is a fintech startup that enables digital payments for offline retail merchants. It was co-founded by Rishabh Jain, Chirag Saini and Dipesh Nagpal in 2016.
Finmo's core product, DigiBharat, enables peer-to-merchant payments from over 60 apps including Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM), Flipkart's PhonePe, ICICI Bank's Pockets, HDFC Bank's Chillr, Samsung Pay, SBI Pay, and Axis Pay.
It is an offline quick response code solution where consumers can pay the merchant directly from their bank account.
“Acquiring Finmo will help us strengthen our base in the industry and increase our merchant and customer base. As a combined entity, we have the capability to become a leader in enabling neighbourhood merchants to accept digital payments,†Sudhakar Ram, founder and CEO of Benow, said.
Ram is also vice chairman and managing director of Mastek.
Benow, operated by Cashless Technologies India Pvt. Ltd, was launched in November 2016. It claims to have a merchant base of more than 10,000 across India. It works with local merchants such as kirana shops, pharmacies, vegetable vendors, restaurants, and home business, offering them a digital platform for customer engagement and digital payments.
The payments space has seen hectic activity of late.
Homegrown e-commerce major Flipkart’s digital payments arm PhonePe recently launched its own point-of-sale device. The handheld device, which resembles a calculator with a few additional buttons, can be connected remotely to a mobile phone and the transaction can be initiated using an app. PhonePe claims the new solution is a better alternative than the QR code system, which needs a certain level of technology savviness.