Sachin Bansal’s Navi Overtakes Amazon Pay To Become Sixth Largest UPI Player

Amid plans on the pipeline to grow its digital personal loans business and expand operations, fintech unicorn Navi has strengthened its lending play, becoming India’s sixth largest company on the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), with its customer-initiated transactions surging to 88.71 Mn in August from 68.47 Mn in the preceding month.

As per National Payment Corporation of India’s (NPCI) data, the value of Navi’s UPI transactions stood at INR 4,651.32 Cr.

With this, the fintech unicorn has surpassed digital payment platform Amazon Pay UPI, which posted 70.72 Mn transactions in August. 

It is pertinent to note that Amazon Pay UPI recently crossed the 100 Mn user mark in the country.

Besides, Walmart-owned PhonePe continues to lead the UPI race with 7.2 Bn transactions and Google Pay securing second position with 5.5 Bn transactions.

Navi, cofounded by Sachin Bansal and Ankit Agarwal, focuses on loan products such as personal, vehicle, and home loans. Founded in 2012, the subsidiary holds an NBFC license and offers digital lending products for personal and housing finance.

It was converted to a public company in March 2022.

The development comes days after Navi  roped in former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) official Anil Kumar Misra as the non-executive chairman of the company’s board.

Not just this, the company recently marked close of $38 Mn (around INR 318.2 Cr) personal loans securitisation deal with financial and investment banking firm JP Morgan to expand its operations and grow its digital personal loans business.

Along with chasing the higher UPI transaction mark, the company has also raised funds this year.

In July, Navi raised INR 150 Cr via bond issuance from six individual investors including Dadachanji Group chairman Kairus Shavak Dadachanji, Pervin Kairus Dadachanji, and Rishad Kairus Dadachanji among others.

The fundraise came months after the startup announced that it was planning to raise up to INR 600 Cr via issuance of Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) to fuel its business growth.

Navi  clocked a net profit of INR 172 Cr in FY23 compared to a loss of INR 67 Cr in FY22. Meanwhile, its operating revenue jumped 2.8X year-on-year (YoY) to INR 1,283 Cr in the fiscal ended March 2023.

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.