PhonePe, the payments subdivision of Flipkart has decided to become an independent Fintech solutions provider predominantly dealing in insurance and mutual products.
The company announced that it is entering into a strategic partnership with one of the leading digital wallet startups FreeCharge which will enable their 45 million customers to link their existing Freecharge wallets with the Phonepe app. Once the accounts are linked, users can pay at online as well as offline stores using their Freecharge wallet balance via the PhonePe payments container. They will also be able to recharge and pay their bills using the PhonePe app.
More than 60,000 online and offline merchants including MakeMyTrip, PVR, Cleartrip, 1mg, FreshMenu, Faasos and Abhibus and most national offline chains like Café Coffee Day, Apollo Pharmacy, KFC, Barista, Spencer’s, FoodWorld etc. use PhonePe.
In April 2016, Flipkart acquired the digital payments startup Phonepe to toughen their payment gateway arm. The company never failed to disappoint its parent company. Since its acquisition it has developed a number of digital payment solutions including UPI-based payments, Bluetooth enabled POS, debit card-EMI facility. Within just 14 months of its launch, the app attained a total payments volume (TPV) annual run rate of $6.1 Billion and is planning to double this number by March 2018. PhonePe claims to have handled around 1 million daily transactions worth over $15 million in November 2017. Their main aim is to make the app a truly open payments platform which will let users choose from a bunch of most preferred payment gateways.
Its sister company, Ekart has also single-handedly signed contracts with well-known brands like TataCliq, Voonik and Adidas.
To increase its online consumer base even further, Flipkart has been in talks with popular market players like Bookmyshow, Swiggy and Zomato. PhonePe can play a extensive role in developing a unified payments platform. Within just one year after the appointment of Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart, the company has raised an additional amount of around $4 billion. He has constantly tried to incorporate newer features to attract new customers to the E-Commerce platform.