Tag: Cred

MakeMyTrip Acquires Happay from CRED

MakeMyTrip, the Indian travel and hospitality aggregator, has announced its decision to acquire the expense management platform Happay from fintech company CRED.

The announcement, made on Monday, indicates that Happay’s expense management operations and team will be integrated into MakeMyTrip, while its payments division will continue to operate under CRED. The financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed.

CRED previously acquired Happay for $180 million in late 2021 and will maintain ownership of Happay’s B2B payments technology stack, which recently introduced solutions on Bharat Connect.

This acquisition aims to enhance MakeMyTrip’s corporate travel services, which currently cater to 59,000 small and medium-sized enterprises through its MyBiz platform, as well as 450 large corporations via Quest2Travel.

The deal is expected to be finalized within 90 days, allowing for the integration of Happay’s extensive experience serving 900 corporate clients with MakeMyTrip’s travel offerings.

Cred Receives In-Principle Approval from RBI for Payment Aggregation Business

Fintech firm Cred has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the payment aggregation (PA) business, marking the initial step towards gaining the final approval. This will allow the Bengaluru-based startup to expand into the merchant payments business alongside its current credit card bill payment platform.

Once the final approval is obtained, Cred will have the capability to settle and transfer funds independently, offering merchant payments to online sellers. The RBI’s draft guidelines for payment aggregators include stringent know-your-customer requirements for merchants. Additionally, Cred aims to develop an offline payments business and implement QR code-based ‘scan and pay’ payments at retail outlets, building on the UPI payments facility it is promoting.

Despite being the fourth largest UPI payments application, Cred has successfully grown its consumer payments business in a short time and aims to establish a comprehensive presence in the payment, shopping, and credit aspects of transactions.