PhonePe Moves Domicile From Singapore To India Ahead Of IPO

IPO bound digital payments app PhonePe on Monday (October 3) announced that it has completed the process to move its domicile from Singapore to India. 

In a statement, PhonePe said that it has completed three important steps to moving its domicile to India. These steps include moving businesses and subsidiaries from PhonePe Singapore to PhonePe Pvt Ltd, moving employees’ ESOP plan from Singapore to its India office, and moving the ownership of the recently acquired IndusOS Appstore to India. 

PhonePe said it has moved its insurance broking services and wealth broking businesses from Singapore to India. 

Besides, PhonePe board recently approved the creation of a new ESOP plan and moving existing ESOPs of over 3,000 employees by issuing new ESOPs under PhonePe India’s new plan, according to the statement.

“Following these actions, all PhonePe Group businesses and entities are now wholly owned by and consolidated under PhonePe Pvt Ltd – India,” the statement said.

In July, Walmart-owned PhonePe had said it was planning to move its registered entity from Singapore to India. The move is in line with the company’s plans to list on Indian stock exchanges.

Previously reports also highlighted the concerns regarding PhonePe and Google Pay’s huge market share as both of them are not based in India. While PhonePe was based out of Singapore, and Google Pay’s parent company Alphabet Inc is a US-based company.

Recently, Walmart said that PhonePe clocked an annualised total payments volume (TPV) of over $830 Bn in the second quarter of 2022 and was witnessing 3.1 Bn transactions on a monthly basis.

In August, PhonePe held 47.9% share in the UPI market. It processed 314 Cr UPI transactions worth INR 5.28 Cr. Earlier this year, PhonePe bought freelance microentrepreneurs-focused B2B startup GigIndia. 

In April, PhonePe India received about $297 Mn (INR 2,275 Cr) from its Singapore-based parent company. The investment was made to help PhonePe acquire Indus OS and begin its mutual fund business.

PhonePe competes with Paytm, Kunal Shah-owned CRED and Google Pay in the Indian digital payments space. 

As per an Inc42 report, the country’s digital payment sector is estimated to account for 16% or $208 Bn of the larger fintech market ($1.3 Tn) by 2025.