PhonePe IPO: Company moves domicile from Singapore to India; ESOPs for 3000 employees approved

PhonePe holds a mutual fund distribution licence and will be adding stocks and exchange-traded funds to its growing list of wealth management products.

Fintech player PhonePe, a part of the Walmart Inc-controlled Flipkart group, on Monday said it has completed the process of moving its domicile from Singapore to India. The development comes ahead of its plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO) for expanding its financial services portfolio and deepening its core United Payments Interface (UPI)-based payments operations and investment banking.

Over the past year, PhonePe has moved all businesses and subsidiaries including Insurance Broking Services and Wealth Broking businesses of PhonePe Singapore to PhonePe Pvt Ltd - India directly, the company said in a statement.

Secondly, it said, PhonePe's board recently approved the creation of a new ESOP plan and the migration of more than 3,000 PhonePe Group employees' existing Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) by issuing new ESOPs under PhonePe India's new plan.

Finally, under the newly liberalized automatic Overseas Direct Investment (ODI) rules, PhonePe has also moved the ownership of recently acquired IndusOSAppstore (OSLabsPte Ltd) from Singapore to India, it said.

Thus, it said, all PhonePe Group businesses and entities are now wholly-owned by and consolidated under PhonePe Pvt Ltd-India.

The digital payment company is seeking a valuation of USD 8-10 billion and plans to list on Indian bourses.

PhonePe was founded by ex-Flipkart executives Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer, and was acquired by Flipkart in 2016. In 2018, Flipkart was acquired by Walmart, and PhonePe was part of the transaction as well.

The company has applied for a mutual fund licence and a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) licence and has acquired three companies -- WealthDesk, OpenQ and GigIndia. PhonePe is the leader in the UPI space, enjoying a 47 per cent market share in monthly transactions.

At present, PhonePe holds a mutual fund distribution licence and will be adding stocks and exchange-traded funds to its growing list of wealth management products.

It announced that it will launch UPI SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) for investment in gold. Users will be able to invest in high-purity 24K gold of a specified amount every month. The gold can be accumulated in their insured bank-grade lockers, maintained by MMTC-PAMP and SafeGold.