Fintech startup Mintoak has acquired Dubai-headquartered ICC Loyalty to add loyalty and rewards capabilities to its banking platform and expand its presence across the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and South East Asia
The acquisition signals Mintoak’s shift beyond merchant payments towards helping banks monetise payment data through AI-powered customer engagement, loyalty and merchant insights
The acquisition positions Mintoak to evolve from a merchant payments platform into a full-fledged payments and engagement OS for banks by combining merchant payments, consumer loyalty and AI-driven data intelligence under one platform
Mumbai-based fintech startup Mintoak
has acquired Dubai-headquartered loyalty and rewards tech company ICC Loyalty to expand beyond merchant payments into customer engagement and data monetisation.
Without disclosing the financial terms of the deal, cofounder and CEO Raman Khanduja told Inc42 that the acquisition was funded predominantly through Mintoak’s balance sheet, along with a small debt component.
ICC will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary and retain its existing team. Mintoak expects to benefit from immediate synergies that would come from cross-selling products.
As per him, Mintoak evaluated nearly 50 acquisition opportunities before going ahead with this deal. It cited the Dubai-based company’s profitability, clientele as well as its complementary position on the consumer side of the payments ecosystem.
Founded in 2017 by Khanduja, Rama Tadepalli (CPO), Sanjay Nazareth (COO), Kabeer Jain (CTO) and Rohit Ramana (CFO), Mintoak offers banks and financial institutions a platform that helps them extend business management tools, payments and cross-selling of financial products to their SME merchant client base.
The startup currently works with over 50 banks across 20 countries, supports more than 5 Mn merchants and processes over $93 Bn in annual payment volume. Some of its clients include HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, SBI Payments, Emirates Islamic and Absa Bank.
ICC Loyalty, on the other hand, provides loyalty and rewards infrastructure to more than 30 banks across 10 countries, serving over 11 Mn banking customers through personalised rewards, lifecycle marketing and customer engagement programmes. Its clients include Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Emirates Islamic, Dubai Islamic Bank and RAKBANK.
It reported a revenue of $16 Mn and a net profit of $4 Mn in 2026.
Via the acquisition, Mintoak plans to cross-sell its merchant engagement platform to ICC’s clients while offering the latter’s rewards stack to its own banking partners. The amalgamation will also support Mintoak’s international business, which currently brings about half of its revenue.
Mintoak reported operating revenue of ₹105 Cr in FY25 and, as per CEO Khanduja, tripled its revenue in FY26. The startup is yet to disclose its P&L statement for the previous fiscal year.
Leveraging Data For Monetisation
Beyond expanding its product portfolio, the acquisition also advances Mintoak’s strategy of building a broader payments and customer engagement platform.
Khanduja said that while banks have traditionally monetised payments by cross-selling loans and other financial products, transaction data presents another commercial opportunity.
“Payments processing has become commoditised. The future lies in engagement, intelligence and monetisation,” he said.
Mintoak can currently analyse merchant payment data to enable banks to cross-sell financial products and value-added services. ICC adds consumer data from loyalty programmes, rewards and spending behaviour, allowing Mintoak to offer products that combine merchant and consumer insights.
According to Khanduja, these combined datasets can power AI-driven offerings such as personalised offers, merchant benchmarking, targeted marketing campaigns and other analytics products that banks can deploy for their customers.
The acquisition comes amid growing interest among fintechs in commercialising payments data. Earlier this week, PhonePe launched PulsePro, a transaction intelligence platform for enterprises, signalling a broader push towards data and analytics-led offerings.
For Mintoak, the deal expands its presence beyond merchant payments into loyalty, customer engagement and analytics, while giving it another avenue to grow revenue from its banking customers.
