PhonePe Confirms Plans To Move Headquarters To India From Singapore

After reports surfaced that fintech giant PhonePe is planning to move its headquarters from Singapore to India, a company spokesperson confirmed the development. 

“We are in the process of moving our registered entity from Singapore to India,” the spokesperson told Inc42.

However, the fintech startup declined to comment on the location of the headquarters in India and the reason behind the change. Earlier, reports said that the Flipkart-owned payment startup plans to list on Indian stock exchanges when the time is right.

“We are moving our holding company to India, and we will list here. Our board has already signed off on it. It’s just a matter of time now,” PhonePe founder and CEO Sameer Nigam had told MoneyControl earlier.

According to Zauba Corp, Phonepe Private Limited, the fintech startup’s parent, was founded in December 2012 and registered at a Mumbai address. As per his Linkedin profile, Nigam is based out of Bengaluru. PhonePe has offices across New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mysuru.

The update comes on the back of reports suggesting that the Parliament’s Monsoon Session is likely to discuss the duopoly of PhonePe and Google Pay in the UPI payments market. 

Reports suggest that there are concerns about the companies’ huge market share as both of them are not based in India. While PhonePe is currently based out of Singapore, Google Pay’s parent company Alphabet Inc is a US-based company.

UPI recorded 586 Cr transactions worth INR 10.14 Lakh Cr and PhonePe processed transactions worth INR 5.01 Lakh Cr in June this year. Google Pay clinched the second spot processing transactions worth INR 3.55 Lakh Cr.

PhonePe was hived off from Flipkart in 2020. The startup is still a fully-owned subsidiary of Flipkart Internet, the ecommerce giant’s Singapore-based entity. 

Walmart-owned ecommerce giant Flipkart holds a majority stake in PhonePe, but is unlikely to shift its own headquarters from Singapore.

PhonePe recently received close to $297 Mn from its Singapore-based parent entity. Phone Private Limited passed two resolutions to allot 2.5 Mn of equity shares to PhonePe Private Limited Singapore to raise INR 2,275 Cr. 

PhonePe claims to have 385 Mn+ registered users and 30 Mn+ merchant outlets in India. Its competitors include Google Pay and Paytm. It still captures around 50% of the country’s UPI payments market.

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