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Ola Money will now compete directly with mobile wallet companies like Paytm, Mobikwik and Freecharge

India’s largest taxi-hailing company, Ola, has branched out from its core business to offer its mobile wallet app Ola Money as an independent service for other transactions.

The Bangalore-based taxi and autorickshaw aggregator will now compete directly with the likes of Alipay-backed Paytm, Snapdeal-owned Freecharge and MobiKwik.

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Earlier, Ola Money was available within the Ola app, through which commuters could pay for their taxi and auto fares. In August, the company announced its partnerships with a host of online platforms like Oyo Rooms, Lenskart and Saavn to allow customers to make cashless transactions.

The Ola Money app can now be used for mobile phone top-up across all operators as well as to send money to friends and family.

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“The launch of the Ola Money app is a big step towards simplifying payments for users across a wide range of products and services they use everyday. We continue to add more merchants and build many more use cases with Ola Money, making it a seamless experience for users,” Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola Co-founder & CEO, said.

The app will soon be usable for utility bill payments and across online and offline merchants and leading payment gateways.

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In October, Ola together with Co-founder Aggarwal reportedly acquired a minority stake in ZipCash Card Services, a company with a wallet licence from the Reserve Bank of India.

Powered by ZipCash, the e-wallet is now available to over 40 million users, including Ola’s existing customer base.

The Ola Money app for Android is available on the Google Play Store and will soon be launched on the iOS and Windows platforms.

Image Credit: vadik444/Shutterstock

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