ibiboGroup takes a pie of PayU global

ibiboGroup, the e-commerce company that owns online travel platforms such as Goibibo.com, redBus.in, Travelboutique Online (51% stake) and mobile marketplace, Tradus.com, has exchanged its payments business (PayU India) for a stake in Naspers’ global payments business, PayU global.

This forms part of a consolidation process of the various Naspers’ payments businesses across the globe, which also include Latin America, Central/ Eastern Europe and Africa.

ibiboGroup CEO, Ashish Kashyap along with Romero Rodrigues (CEO of Buscape Group from Latin America) will join the management board of PayU global. Local country heads of payments’ businesses will now roll up to the global PayU entity.

According to Ashish Kashyap, CEO of ibiboGroup: “ibiboGroup has become a strong platform for fostering entrepreneurship. This is an exciting development in ibibo’s life journey. Whilst we build out our various online travel assets and mobile marketplace businesses, this opportunity provides ibiboGroup with exposure to a piece in a global play, which could add strong value to our group. ibiboGroup and PayU india will continue to work closely as strong partners."

ibiboGroup had launched its payments business, branded as PayU India in the year 2011 and scaled the same to thousands of e-commerce merchants before recently hiving off the same to the Nasper’s global payments group.

ibiboGroup launched Goibibo.com, the horizontal online travel aggregator in 2010. Within a short span, Goibibo has become a top online travel destination on mobile and desktop, trouncing hundreds of large and small players. In 2012, ibiboGroup acquired a 51% stake in B2B online travel aggregator Travelboutique. In early 2013, ibiboGroup acquired India’s biggest online bus ticketing platform, redBus.in. ibibo Group’s combined travel portfolio makes the group the largest online travel player in India in terms of volume of transactions.