ReportWire

Tag: PhonePe

  • BharatPe, PhonePe settle 5-year long trademark disputes related to ‘Pe’ suffix

    BharatPe, PhonePe settle 5-year long trademark disputes related to ‘Pe’ suffix

    [ad_1]

    BharatPe Group and PhonePe Group have “amicably settled” all long-standing legal disputes pertaining to the use of the trademark with the suffix ‘Pe’, the companies said in a joint release.

    The fintechs have been involved in a long-drawn legal dispute across multiple courts for the past five years. The settlement will put an end to all open judicial proceedings. “This is a positive development for the industry. I appreciate the maturity and professionalism shown by the managements of both sides, working closely to resolve all outstanding legal issues and moving ahead to focus their energy and resources in building robust digital payment ecosystems,” said Rajnish Kumar, Chairman of BharatPe Board.

    “As a next step, parties have already taken steps to withdraw all oppositions against each other in the trademark registry which will help them to proceed with the registration of their respective marks,” the release said.

    Further, both entities will undertake other necessary steps to comply with the obligations under the settlement agreement in respect of all cases before the Delhi and Bombay High Courts.

    Sameer Nigam, Founder and CEO PhonePe said, “’I am glad that we have reached an amicable resolution in this matter. This outcome will benefit both companies to move forward and focus our collective energy on growing the Indian fintech industry as a whole”.

    BharatPe, brand name of Resilient Innovations, was founded in 2018 when it launched India’s first UPI interoperable QR code for zero MDR payment acceptance service. It also operates the card acceptance terminal — BharatPe Swipe, and has 1.3 crore registered merchants across over 450 cities. It processes over 37 crore UPI transactions per month with annualised Transaction Processed Value (TPV) of ₹1.7-lakh crore.

    PhonePe Group’s digital payments app PhonePe was launched in August 2016. The platform has 53.5 crore registered users and a digital payments acceptance network of 3.9 crore merchants. It processes over 25.5 crore daily transactions with an annualised TPV of $1.5 trillion.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Pine Labs receives Singapore Court nod to shift base to India

    Pine Labs receives Singapore Court nod to shift base to India

    [ad_1]

    Payments firm Pine Labs has received approval from a Singapore court to merge its India and Singapore entities, Pine Labs Limited (PLS) and Pine Labs Private Limited (PLI).

    This move is aimed for Singapore-based Pine Labs, to move its domicile to India. Meanwhile, its application for a reverse merger is under consideration at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

    The whole undertaking of Pine Labs Limited including all assets and liabilities shall be transferred and vested in PLI according to the amalgamation agreement, according to regulatory filing in Singapore.

    All the shareholders of Singapore entity will become Pine Labs Private Limited (PLI) shareholders and any pending legal proceedings against PLS shall be continued by PLI after the arrangement.

    The filing further states that following the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) order filed with the Registrar of Companies, the Singapore entity shall be dissolved without undergoing winding up.

    Pine Labs has become the third fintech company after PhonePe and Groww which relocated its domicile to India from overseas. Currently, various start-ups including KreditBee, Razorpay, Meesho, and Zepto have been working on shifting their ultimate holding entities to India.

    All companies are also trying to assess the tax payout–in India or abroad–for these mergers.

    In April, US-based investment firms Baron Funds and Invesco marked up the valuation of Pine Labs to $5.8 billion and $4.8 billion, respectively. It’s worth noting that the valuation plays a crucial role in deciding the quantum of tax liabilities for shifting the domicile.

    Of late, fintech companies have been laying emphasis to be headquartered in India as regulators’ job become easier as far as diligence and monitoring are concerned. However, the reverse flips require hefty tax liabilities. For context, PhonePe’s investors paid ₹8,000 crore in taxes to complete the process.

    While PhonePe shifted its domicile to India in October 2022, wealth management startup Groww announced the completion of its move on May 9.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal leaves board | TechCrunch

    Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal leaves board | TechCrunch

    [ad_1]

    Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal has resigned from the e-commerce group’s board, the two said Saturday. Sachin Bansal, the Bengaluru-headquartered startup’s other co-founder, left the board in 2018 after scuffle with the investors.

    Binny Bansal, who reserved the rights to stay on Flipkart’s board for as long as he preferred, cited conflict of interest with his new venture as the reason for the move. Bansal launched OppDoor, a cross-border e-commerce startup, late last year. OppDoor offers end-to-end solutions — including market entry analysis, demand mapping, inventory management, cross-border logistics and taxation assistance — to businesses, according to its website.

    The move also follows Bansal selling his entire stake in Flipkart, which was acquired by Walmart in 2018 for $16 billion, in recent years ahead of the e-commerce group’s much-awaited IPO, which is now slated for 2025. Bansal — who is also on the board of PhonePe, a position he is maintaining — has become a prolific investor in recent years, backing a number of startups including PhonePe.

    “I am proud of the Flipkart Group’s achievements over the past 16 years. Flipkart is in a robust position, with a strong leadership team and a clear path forward, and with this confidence, I have decided to step aside, knowing the company is in capable hands,” Bansal said in a statement.

    After leaving Flipkart, Sachin Bansal founded Navi, a financial services firm that is looking to go public. In 2022, Navi filed the paperworks for its initial public offering, but deterred the plan after the market conditions worsened.

    “Flipkart is the outcome of a great idea and a lot of hard work, built by teams committed to transforming how India shops,” Flipkart Group chief executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy said in a statement Saturday. “We wish Binny the best as he embarks on his next venture and thank him for the deep impact he has enabled for the Indian retail ecosystem.”

    [ad_2]

    Manish Singh

    Source link

  • PhonePe adds health insurance plans to its offerings

    PhonePe adds health insurance plans to its offerings

    [ad_1]

    Walmart-owned fintech firm PhonePe’s subsidiary PhonePe Insurance Broking Services has launched its health insurance vertical, offering plans in partnership with multiple insurers.

    PhonePe users can set up monthly payments for the premium via its UPI platform. The company claimed that it has sold 5.6 million policies to date and is diversifying its insurance products with health insurance. PhonePe Insurance platform has also sold policies across 98 per cent of India’s pin codes and has served more than 200 million vehicle insurance quotes, it added in its statement.

    The health insurance plans, which come with coverage of up to ₹1 crore, allow users to choose any hospital room without any cap. A user can also avail of a bonus cover of up to 7 times of the base cover amount for each claim-free year, among other features.

    The health insurance plans being offered by PhonePe Insurance Broking are accompanied by pre- and post-sales assistance to help users make informed decisions, file claims and access other services.

    Users can buy health insurance on the PhonePe app by entering the details of the members they want to insure, comparing policies on the quotes page, entering health details and either setting up a monthly mandate or paying annually.

    “One of the biggest barriers in buying health insurance has been affordability and we have solved the same by creating India’s first health insurance marketplace focused on monthly payments. We believe this will drive deep penetration with users being able to pay in monthly subscriptions with a much lower financial burden,” said Hemant Gala, Vice-President Financial Services at PhonePe.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • PhonePe launches POS solution for merchant partners

    PhonePe launches POS solution for merchant partners

    [ad_1]

    PhonePe announced the launch of its Point-of-sale (POS) device that enables merchants to accept payments via Debit Cards, Credit Cards and UPI, providing them with a simple and seamless settlement experience. 

    The device comes preloaded with the PhonePe POS App and supports transactions through tap/swipe/dip and interoperable QR codes.

    The POS device, built on the Android platform, claims to revolutionize the checkout experience for businesses. Whether customers are at the counter, table, delivery location, or anywhere with cellular coverage, the device simplifies the entire process, elevating the customer experience.

    Vivek Lohcheb, Head of Offline Business at PhonePe said, “The PhonePe POS device, a one-stop solution, empowers our merchant partners to elevate the purchasing experience for their consumers. It features a unified and cohesive interface that supports various modes of payment, providing convenience and flexibility.” 

    By accepting credit and debit transactions, merchants can expect an increase in their average ticket size, ultimately driving overall business growth. With PhonePe’s extensive network of over 3.5 crore merchants nationwide, our goal is to expand this solution pan India and deploy 150,000 devices by next year, he added. 

    Its reliability and security are backed by the PCI-PTS 6 certification, safeguarding both merchant and consumer data. With automatic batch closure and unified reconciliation, the device becomes a one-stop solution for hassle-free account settlement, streamlining merchant operations. The device is offered at a nominal monthly rental, and comes with world-class product quality and service from PhonePe, said the company. 

    The PhonePe POS device includes a touchscreen display, a processor for rapid response times, long battery life, a built-in printer allowing on-the-spot receipts printing, along with WiFi and 4G connectivity via a sim card. 

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • ‘Biggest failure in India’: Bharat Pe’s co-founder Ashneer Grover on WhatsApp Pay

    ‘Biggest failure in India’: Bharat Pe’s co-founder Ashneer Grover on WhatsApp Pay

    [ad_1]

    Ashneer Grover, former Managing Director and co-founder of Bharat Pe and Shark Tank season 1 judge, on Wednesday, slammed WhatsApp Pay as India’s biggest failure as a tech product.

    WhatsApp is widely used as a messaging app in the country and offers convenience for users to send money on the platform by using UPI. Grover called the app’s payment as easy as sending images, however, failed to capture the mass users.

    Grover, in a tweet, said, “WhatsApp Pay has to be the biggest failure in India as a tech product. Everyone has @WhatsApp on their phone – sending money on WA using UPI is as easy as sending pic.”

    Grover further added that the Meta-owned platform should have beaten other UPI-enabled Payment apps like Paytm, PhonePe and GooglePay. He said, “It should have beaten @Paytm @PhonePe @GooglePay. Country managers can’t win you markets – good riddance now !”

    Grover, in another tweet, shared a screenshot of WhatsApp’s advertisement in a thread of tweets and criticised the organisation’s managers for publishing useless ads. He said that the company should have invested in improving the payment services instead of posting the ad about its safety features.

    His post reads, “Yeh ad hi dekh lo – iska kya acahar daalega koi customer – itni ad WhatsApp Pay ki kar lete instead. Public policy uncle aur vakil babu dhanda chalayenge to aisa hi hoga.” [If lawyers and public policy uncle run WhatsApp’s Business, this is unavoidable.]

    However, several Twitter users didn’t support Grover narrative and said that it’s not WhatsApp’s primary business model and hence, it didn’t focus primarily on the UPI payment business.

    One Twitter user wrote, “They came late and haven’t done anything new. Not only WhatsApp Pay, even Amazon UPI Pay is also failure. The reason for this is that Payment & Finance is not their primary business.”

    Another user replied, “Not their focus area for business model. Simple. They are already generating revenue from WhatsApp business.”

    Many Twitter users also began questioning Grover’s own Bharat Pe app and asked why it has been beaten by WhatsApp Pay. Grover replied that Bharat Pe doesn’t do consumer payments – it’s a merchant service.

    Grover has previously been associated with unicorns such as Bharat Pe and Grofers in leadership roles. He was also among the popular sharks on Shark Tank India but is not featured in the next season. Amit Jain, CEO and co-founder of CarDekho, replaced him.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Flipkart’s Big Billion Days sale pushes Walmart’s international revenue; PhonePe hits 10 bn transactions in Q3

    Flipkart’s Big Billion Days sale pushes Walmart’s international revenue; PhonePe hits 10 bn transactions in Q3

    [ad_1]

    E-commerce major Flipkart’s flagship festive season sale event ‘The Big Billion Days’ has helped retail giant Walmart improve its international business revenue in the fiscal third quarter, Walmart’s Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said at an analyst call on Tuesday.

    “Walmart international delivered strong sales results with sales up 13.3 per cent in constant currency despite continued macro headwinds. Ecommerce sales on a constant currency basis were exceptionally strong, up 46 per cent in the quarter. The earlier timing of Flipkart’s Big Billion Days event was also of benefit to sales results,” Rainey said.

    Walmart International’s net sales grew $1.7 billion or 7.1 per cent to $25.3 billion in the quarter ended October 31, 2022. The results were negatively affected by $1.5 billion from currency fluctuations, the company said.  

    “In India, Flipkart had a great quarter with strong customer response to our Big Billion Days sales which moved forward into Q3 this year from Q4 last year. We had over 1 billion visits to our site during the 8-day event and importantly, we saw more than 60 percent of those customers coming from tier 2 and tier 3 cities,” the CFO said.

    The company said it continues to see strong growth in Flipkart ads in India which has contributed to its global advertising business which grew over 30 per cent during the quarter.

    Quarterly transactions on PhonePe, the digital payments firm owned by Flipkart, crossed 10 billion for the first time.

    “PhonePe also continues to perform well with annualised total payment volume or TPV now over $920 billion and reaching a record level of monthly transactions to about $3.6 billion. This was the first time PhonePe had a quarter with more than 10 billion transactions,” Rainey said.

    The company’s adjusted earnings for the quarter stood at $1.50 per share, which marks an increase of 3.4 per cent from the same period last year. Gross revenue grew 8.7 per cent from last year to $152.8 billion in the quarter in review.

    Walmart’s consolidated gross profit rate declined 89 basis points, primarily due to markdowns and a mix of sales in the US, an inflation-related LIFO charge at Sam’s Club, and the timing of Flipkart’s annual sale event, the company said. Its consolidated operating income stood at $2.7 billion, a decrease of 53.5 per cent, including the legal charges described above. Adjusted operating income grew 3.9 percent to $6 billion.

    Also read: Google Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro Flipkart offer: How to get up to Rs 20,000 discount

    Also read: IIT-Guwahati sees spike in pre-placement offers, highest package at Rs 1.20 crore

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • PhonePe’s operating revenue jumps more than double in FY22

    PhonePe’s operating revenue jumps more than double in FY22

    [ad_1]

    Walmart-owned fintech platform PhonePe has said its core losses, excluding ESOP-related costs, have narrowed because of the strong growth across all its businesses. As per its filing, its consolidated operating revenue has more than doubled (2.3X), growing by 138 per cent to Rs 1,646 crore during the year ended March 31, 2022, from Rs 690 crore in the previous year. “The increase in revenue is primarily driven by the robust growth PhonePe has seen across all its lines of businesses,” the filing stated. 

    The Bengaluru-based fintech’s, which competes with Paytm, Google Pay, and Amazon Pay, EBITDA or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation, without accounting for ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) costs, narrowed 15 per cent to Rs 671 crore during the year. 
    The company had last reported a net loss of Rs 1,727.87 crore in FY 2021, as per its latest available financial statements that it filed with the Registrar of Companies.  
    However, the Bengaluru-based startup’s expenses also jumped over the last year. To promote its insurance distribution business, PhonePe had floated a marketing campaign during the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2021 and IPL in 2022. This led to hike in costs, the company said.
    Its employee costs also increased slightly on new hires as it added more product lines, including wealth services. 
    “The marketing expenses, which form a major chunk of the company’s costs, grew about 62 per cent to Rs 866 crore during the year. The increase is largely attributable to the marketing campaign for its new Insurance distribution business during the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2021, and again during IPL in 2022,” the PhonePe statement said. 
    The employee cost rose by 41 per cent to Rs 555 crore in FY 2022.
    The fintech giant is one of the leading UPI payment platforms in the country. In 2020, it was divested from Flipkart. At present, Flipkart is still the largest shareholder in PhonePe.

    [ad_2]

    Source link