India's Oxigen Raises Funds, Plans New Hires: Report

Major Indian payments vendor Oxigen is planning for some serious expansion—to the tune of 1,500 new hires and roughly $200 million in new fundraising by June—as it starts focusing on suburban and rural India especially in east and central India, according to a PTI report in Livemint.

The report quoted Oxigen chairman Pramod Saxena saying that Oxigen approached the Reserve Bank of India for a payments bank license, which will enable it to join the government’s financial inclusion program. Saxena called the remittances market in India "a $73 billion opportunity that is growing at the rate of 7% annually," according to the article.

Oxigen has its own mobile wallet on iOS and Android. Last year, the company added the ability to generate one-time-use virtual Visa card numbers for online payments.

It focuses on enabling consumers to make utility payments and money transfers. The significance of the firm’s RBI move—in effect, launching what’s become known as a payments bank—involves the specific nature of payments businesses in India, noted a report in The International Business Times. "A payments bank in India can’t lend money, but it can accept deposits and provide remittances. Such banks are being allowed in India as the nation moves to include more rural areas under a so-called financial-inclusion mandate," said the IBT story.