Former Yes Bank Executive Ritesh Pai Joins PhonePe As CEO Of Intl Payments Biz

SUMMARY

In his last role, Pai was the president of products and solutions at TerraPay. Prior to that, he also worked as the senior group president and chief digital officer at Yes Bank

Pai will help the fintech major in driving its international growth plans

The new appointment comes at a time when PhonePe is looking to grow aggressively in the domestic and international markets

Fintech major PhonePe has roped in former executive of Yes Bank and TerraPay, Ritesh Pai as CEO of its international payments business.

Pai is a seasoned digital payments sector leader with a proven track record of launching and implementing payment products and solutions globally, PhonePe said in a statement.

In his last role, Pai was the president of products and solutions at TerraPay. Prior to that, he also worked as the senior group president and chief digital officer at Yes Bank, where he led the digital strategy and transformation for the bank.

“Ritesh has been an early believer and staunch supporter of the company and was very instrumental in our early UPI success story. I am delighted that he has joined us to lead our international growth plans,” said Sameer Nigam, CEO and founder of PhonePe.

“PhonePe has achieved market leadership in India with its unwavering commitment to product innovation and building customer-centric solutions. I am confident that this same focus will help us expand our footprint beyond national borders, taking our payment technology to an international audience,” said Pai.

It is pertinent to note that Walmart-backed PhonePe has started aggressively expanding its fintech business.

Recently, Walmart said that PhonePe has reached a total payment value (TPV) of $1.3 Tn, equating with some of the largest fintech firms in the US market.

Last year, PhonePe launched support for cross-border UPI payments, under UPI International, making the platform available across merchant outlets that have a local QR code in the UAE, Singapore, Mauritius, Nepal and Bhutan.

Currently, the fintech decacorn claims to have a 50 crore registered user base and 3.7 Cr merchants covering over 99% of the postal codes across India.

PhonePe recently expanded into financial services to mutual funds, stock broking, lending, and others. It also launched a consumer-centric shopping app Pincode, which is built on the government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform, last year.

Meanwhile, in the UPI space, PhonePe currently holds the largest portion. It processed 4,989.91 Cr UPI transactions worth INR 81.96 Lakh Cr in the first 11 months of 2023.

The company recorded a revenue of INR 2,914 Cr in FY23, an increase of almost 77% from INR 1,646 Cr in FY22.