Oxigen Acquires Majority Stake In United Villages

Mobile Payments are not a new phenomenon in India. Given the vast number of people who have access to mobile phones, and the inherent mistrust in traditional banking systems like Credit Cards and preference for Prepaid among the general population, Mobile Payments have always shown a lot of potential.  Offshoots of M-Payments like Mobile Ticketing too are in the pipeline. The RBI opening up to Mobile Innovation has given impetus to many companies. Today we have news of Oxigen Services having acquired a majority stake in United Villages Network Pvt. Ltd.

Oxigen Services India was started by an IIT-R graduate with South African Blue Label Telecom. They started off in the mobile recharge sector, steadily evolving to offer other payment services like airline/rail/bus/m-ticketing. They had purchased a minority stake in UVN last year, and have  gone ahead and bought a 51% stake in it. While the transaction was said to have taken place earlier, it has now been made public.

Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd, a payments solutions provider, has acquired 51 per cent stake in Jaipur-based United Villages Network Pvt Ltd for an undisclosed amount, a top company executive told Techcircle.in. Although the deal was struck earlier this year, the transaction was not made public.

United Villages are a mobile-based distributor of goods, primarily in rural markets.  They provide a link between large wholesalers and logistics partners, to deliver products to warehouses of the wholesalers as per the order on the mobile-based platform.

Chintan Bakshi, founder of United Villages, said,“We realised that there was limited demand for these services, even though our prices were very low, especially with proliferation of cellular networks and mobile-based Internet connectivity in rural areas. Right now, we are taking orders via mobile phones and getting help from Oxigen to enable payments through mobile phones. In fact, we are creating an entire mobile phone-enabled eco-system in rural India, so that the entire value chain of ordering, invoice notifications, dispatches, deliveries and payments can be handled on a single mobile platform,”

Oxigen will not be interfering with the day to day running, but have been said to have appointed board members of their choice on the United Villages board.

Together, both companies can enjoy each other’s competitive advantages to reach out to more and more Indians in different, innovative ways.

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