The ride-hailing giant already has an R&D centre based in Bangalore

Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab has acquired iKaaz, a Bangalore-based digital payments startup.

The iKaaz team will join Grab’s Bangalore R&D centre upon completion of the acquisition. Grab will also integrate its mobile payments tech, allowing it to build new features and onboard new partners for GrabPay, its payments platform.

Grab’s Bangalore R&D centre is its sixth globally. It has over 75 engineers and it plans to increase that number to 200 by the end of the year.

Also Read: Southeast Asian ride-hailing company Grab secures investment from Hyundai, Toyota

iKaaz was launched in 2014, comprising of members with prior experience in payment companies such as Nokia Money and Obopay. The platform integrates a range of payment tech as such as NFC, QR-code, audio-based payments as well as bill payments, online payments and P2P. It was built to solve the pain points of India’s unbanked population.

“iKaaz’s technology has served merchants and partners across different industries and in different settings, from parking lots and airports to retail stores and hotels. This rich set of offline payments features offers the flexibility needed to tailor our GrabPay platform to each country and partner in Southeast Asia,” said Jason Thompson, Managing Director, GrabPay Southeast Asia, in an official press statement.

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Image Credit: Grab

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