In measures to compete with its bigger rival Paytm, FreeCharge has today announced its partnership with OYO in order to further expand its footprints in the hospitality sector.
With this partnership, consumers can now use the Freecharge wallet to pay across OYO platforms in less than 10 seconds for over 5,500 hotels in a swifter and secure way. The partnership will also help OYO get access to FreeCharge’s robust partner network and bring more value to its consumers and partners.
This move is aimed at further strengthening FreeCharge’s partner ecosystem and expanding its footprint in hospitality segment. It had earlier announced its partnership with Cleartrip and it is now steadily making in-roads into hospitality sector.
Speaking on the partnership, Govind Rajan, CEO, Freecharge said,
OYO has brought about a real overhaul in the hospitality industry, providing travellers with a wide array of places to stay as per their requirements. With consumers getting access to over 5500 hotels and 65000 rooms, Freecharge will further enhance the experience of booking by providing travellers with a safer and swifter way to pay with our wallet anytime, anywhere. We are focussed on building habit commerce and are moving towards building a less-cash society. Our partnership with OYO marks another aspect of a person’s life that will be made more convenient with our wallet.
Abhinav Sinha, COO, OYO said,
At OYO, we focus on enhancing guest-experience through tech-powered solutions. Agility and innovation are factors that determine our choice of partners. Freecharge offers a fast and reliable payment option through which guests can book a room in any of our partner-hotels across 170 cities. This partnership undoubtedly makes the purchase experience on OYO more convenient and seamless.
Freecharge claims, that its wallet is the fastest growing in the country with a reach of 30%, with the company claiming to have 99% success rate — which if true — is unarguably one of the best success rates in the country.
Lately, the company has shifted its focus towards expanding its footprint, and hence the OYO move. In recent months, it has entered into around 15 sectors by partnering with various companies, allowing customers using Freecharge to pay for various services.
Earlier, the company partnered with ePaisa in order to strengthen payments at offline stores. Within just four months of launching its wallet service, the company crossed the mark of 1 million transactions and aims to reach 7 million by the end of this year.
It recently came up with a new feature which allows users to send money to their contacts via WhatsApp. The company says that it is the next level of ‘Chat n Pay’ feature which was recently launched on FreeCharge.
Last week, the company has recently restructured its top-level management where Govind Rajan has been named as the new CEO while Kunal Shah has been elevated from CEO to the post of a Chairman.
