Zomato incorporates payments subsidiary Zomato Payments

Newly listed Zomato has incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary in the name of Zomato Payments Private Limited, the company informed the stock exchange in a regulatory filing on Thursday. 

Zomato said that the objective of incorporating the subsidiary is to conduct the business of providing payment aggregator and payment gateway services in accordance with the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India. 

The subsidiary will issue, implement, undertake, assist, offer, distribute, or otherwise promote such services, schemes and projects including all types of electronic and virtual payment systems, e-wallets, and cash cards, among others, to users, said its filing.

Under Zomato Payments a payment and settlement system, payment gateway services, prepaid and postpaid payments instruments payment systems will be set up to offer payment services for all goods and services and utility bills through mobile phones, the company informed the stock exchange. 

The subsidiary has been incorporated with an initial subscription of 10,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each aggregating to Rs 1,00,000, Zomato said in its filing. 

While Zomato did not flesh out how exactly it plans to integrate its payments service on its platform, it could potentially enable it for food orders, its dietary supplements business and for grocery delivery on Grofers. 

We have reached out to Zomato for more details and will update the story when they respond.

Zomato’s key rival Swiggy had in June last year launched its digital wallet ‘Swiggy Money’ in partnership with ICICI Bank to enable its customers to store money for all food orders on the platform.

Zomato Payments is in an attempt to own the payment experience for the company’s core food ordering business and allied services such as grocery and fitness. The company had already picked up a 9.3% stake in Grofers with plans to re-enter grocery delivery. Moreover, its restaurant supply arm HyperPure along with Fitso that deals in on-demand sporting and fitness offerings also complement the in-house payment gateway.

On a group level, owning a payment layer seems to be a meaningful step by Zomato and it shall be interesting to see how the vertical pans out for the food-tech company in the long haul.