Payments and API banking solutions company Cashfree Payments has made an equity investment of $15 million in Telr, a Payment Service Provider (PSP) in UAE and Saudi Arabia.

With this investment, Cashfree has become the single largest stakeholder in Telr. This strategic investment will enable Cashfree to launch its offerings in the MENA region on the back of Telr’s presence and payment infrastructure. The two companies also plan to build a cross-border payments platform to help Indian merchants accept payments from customers in the MENA region and vice-versa.

Growing market

Akash Sinha, CEO and Co-Founder, Cashfree Payments told BusinessLine, “The entire West Asian market is growing rapidly when it comes to digitisation. The MENA region is witnessing a continuous transition towards cashless transactions, with traditional brick-and-mortar businesses moving towards expanding online offerings. Today, less than 2 per cent of retail purchases in these countries happen online. So, there is a huge market opportunity.”

He added that another reason for this investment is that today a lot of Indian businesses are going global, and West Asia is one of the popular expansion locations among these companies. “The intention here is that once a company starts working with Cashfree, they will have a seamless transition whenever they go to other geographies across the world. And, companies will not have to go look for new banking partners in these new countries,” Sinha noted.

Cashfree’s pay-outs offering is integrated into the payments flows of internet businesses like Cred, Dream11, Acko, Xiaomi and Nykaa among others. The six-year-old company claims to be profitable for the past four financial years.

Founded in 2014, Telr is a UAE-based payment gateway solutions provider. It enables handling payments in over 120 currencies and 30 languages in a secured fashion.

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