Flipkart’s PhonePe Steps Into Wealth Management Space

Flipkart-owned digital payments company PhonePe has launched its own wealth management unit, PhonePe Wealth Services, according to Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings.

According to the RoC filings seen by Inc42, the unit was incorporated on November 15 with an initial authorised capital of $7.12 Mn (INR 50 Cr) and paid up capital of $2.85 Mn (INR 20 Cr).

PhonePe mutual fund head Terence Onie Lucien and Aniruddha Shashkant Patwardhan who is the chief of the engineering vertical at Flipkart financial services, are going to be the directors of the new management platform.

According to documents, PhonePe Wealth Services will be acting as an agent, advisor and consultant to financial services such as deposits, mutual funds, government securities, ad debentures among others.

Though the separate unit will be headquartered in Bengaluru like PhonePe, it is not known if the wealth management platform will be made accessible from its application.

This development comes in after digital payment company Paytm had also launched its investment and wealth management arm Paytm Money, earlier in January. It began public operations in September this year and claims to have a registered user base of 850K.

Further in October, MobiKwik forayed into the wealth management space after acquiring Mumbai-based wealth management platform Clearfunds.

According to a 2018 IBEF report, the Indian mutual fund (MF) industry has recorded high growth in assets under management (AUM). The total AUM of the industry was recorded $375.9 Bn (INR 2.52 Tn)  between April to August 2018.