Ride-hailing aggregator Ola Cabs, operated by ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd, may shut operations of its neobanking platform Avail Finance and integrate its operations with Ola Money, according to a report by Economic Times.
The parent company, however, declined to comment on the development.
Ola had acquired Avail Finance in March last year at a figure believed to be around $50 million, in a share-swap transaction.
As per the integration plan, Ola has stopped the lending services offered by the neobanking platform, Avail Finance, the report cited above noted, adding that the ride aggregator is working on a new lending offering which will be available via the Ola and Ola Money application.
Ola Money, run by Ola Financial Services Pvt. Ltd, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ANI Technologies, which offers wallet, credit, buy-now-pay-later offerings, among others.
It entered the financial services business through this acquisition in 2015, worth about $8 million, and later rebranded ZipCash Card Services Pvt Ltd into Ola Money.
Interestingly, Avail Finance, was founded in 2017 by Ola chief executive officer Bhavish Aggarwal’s brother, Ankush Aggarwal and Tushar Mehndiratta and was later acquired by Ola Cabs as the latter sought to expand its financial services operations. The Bengaluru-based lending firm offers loans to blue-collared workers.
This development comes soon after the Bengaluru-based ride-hailing company decided to shut its in-car infotainment service, Ola Play, in November. The service was launched in 2016 as a ‘contextual connected car’ service, through which the company sought to offer targeted marketing campaigns to further monetize its cab rides.
In June 2022, ANI Technologies had shuttered its quick commerce operations – Dash—and had said that it was looking to double down on its electric vehicle (EV) business, which hints that the company may be looking to cut costs.
