Payment solutions provider Oxigen is in the ‘advanced stages’ of talks with investors for a $200m expansion drive across semi-urban and rural India, the company has said.
According to Oxigen’s chairman and managing director Pramod Saxena the firm is looking to raise funds in the range of $150m to $200m, the majority of which is expected to be in-hand by June of this year.
Saxena said that the new investment would fund a hiring drive of up to 1,500 people and the launch of a payments bank. Oxigen is also looking to ramp up its payment network across semi-urban and rural India.
He explained: “We are gearing up to expand our support system and the infrastructure for services aggregation, distribution as well as payment processing and collections in semi-urban and rural areas, particularly in east and Central India.”
Oxigen has already approached the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a payments bank license with plans to promote financial inclusion by offering small savings accounts and remittance services to migrant workers, low income households and small businesses.
Saxena said: “For our payments bank we are ramping up our operations and workforce. We will be hiring around 1,000 people for this.”
The firm is also eyeing the remittance market. According to Saxena the firm is “very optimistic” about its future in the remittance market, a $73bn opportunity with a growth rate of 7% annually.
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