Airtel buys YTS Solutions to boost mobile wallet biz

NEW DELHI: Airtel M-Commerce Services (AMSL), the wholly-owned subsidiary of India's top telecom service provider Bharti Airtel, has acquired digital financial company YTS Solutions in order to expand its presence in mobile commerce segment.

Airtel would integrate the payments and remittance businesses of YTS and this acquisition will expand Airtel’s portfolio in the mobile commerce segment and bring in a host of new product capabilities targeted at migrants in urban cities and their families in rural towns and villages, a release said.

AMSL has also appointed YTS Co-Founder and CEO Manish Khera as its CEO. Once appointed, Khera will be a part of the Airtel Management Board and report to Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO of Bharti Airtel (India & South Asia).

"I am confident that his rich domain expertise will add immense value to our plans and help lead our mobile commerce and payments business to reach millions of underserved Indians," said Vittal.

"I am now excited at the opportunity of working with India’s largest telecom company and leading its vision of delivering a transformed m-Commerce experience for million across the country," said Khera.

Khera is a recipient of several honours, including “Young Global Leader-2011” by World Economic Forum, “Entrepreneur of the Year” by EY, and the “Forbes India Leadership Award – 2012” in the “Outstanding Start-up” category. Prior to founding YTS, he was MD and CEO of FINO Pay Tech Ltd, and earlier worked in ICICI Bank.

Airtel is India’s largest mobile operator with a customer base of over 230 million customers. It is also India’s largest rural mobile operator with over 100 million customers. The company’s network covers 4,30,000 towns and villages backed by 1.5 million distribution outlets.

In 2011, AMSL had announced the launch of Airtel Money – India’s first prepaid mobile wallet by a telecom services provider. In January 2015, AMSL applied to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a Payments’ Bank License

Based out of Mumbai, YTS has been developing innovative financial products focused on mass market and micro-transactions.