BharatPe’s POS vertical hits profitability in 2 years of launch

• Fastest-ever launch to profitability story in the POS vertical

New Delhi, September 29, 2022: BharatPe, India’s leading fintech company, today announced that it has achieved an important milestone on its road to profitability with BharatSwipe, the company’s POS business turning profitable. BharatPe has achieved this milestone in 2 years of the launch of the product. The company also shared that this is the fastest-ever launch to profitability story of any brand in the POS category in the country.

BharatPe had launched BharatSwipe, its disruptive card payment acceptance machine in the second half of 2020. This was India’s first zero rental Swipe machine that witnessed an overwhelming response from its early days. Today, BharatSwipe contributes to over 20% to the overall payments Transaction Processed Value (TPV) of the company annually. BharatPe is the No. 2 private POS player in the country with an installed base of close to 2 lac machines across 250+ cities in the country.

Speaking on the achievement, Mr. Shashvat Nakrani, Founder, BharatPe, who also spearheaded the launch and scale-up of BharatSwipe for the company said “BharatSwipe turning profitable is a great validation of the merchants’ trust in us and our business model. Today, we clock close to 4 million transactions on our POS devices every month. We are committed to scale this business and are aiming to end this fiscal with US$ 6bn in annualized TPV. As we move ahead, we will focus on partnering with the best in the business to launch a range of offerings and new products with the objective of offering a superlative experience to our merchant partners. Earlier this year, we had announced a strategic partnership with Ingenico and will be launching the new Axium POS machines coupled with PPaaS soon with the aim to offer world-class payment and commerce services to our merchant partners and further help them grow their business. We will also launch new offerings like consumer credit as well as loyalty and rewards features on our POS machines so as to enable our merchants to sell more and further grow their business.”

Added Suhail Sameer, CEO, BharatPe, “It was not so long ago that we ventured into the hyper-competitive POS category with yet another disruptive product from the BharatPe stable. The response was very encouraging and we scripted the fastest-ever scale up in the POS category with wide acceptance of the product by merchants across categories, including kirana store owners, restaurant owners and entrepreneurs with 4-5 outlets opting for BharatSwipe. It is interesting to note that over 60% of our POS merchants were first-time card machine users. Today, as I look back, it gives me a sense of pride when I say that the BharatPe team has been able to create history with the fastest-ever launch to profitability story in this vertical ever. This is the first feather in our cap as we focus all our energies towards turning profitable by the end of FY23.”

BharatSwipe allows merchants to accept payments from a range of credit and debit cards. With BharatSwipe, merchants can also accept QR payments, via dynamic QR generated on the Swipe machine. Also, BharatSwipe’s functionality of generating physical receipts for QR payments done via BharatPe’s UPI QR is one of the most sought after features of the device. It also offers the ‘holiday settlements’ feature which allows merchants to accept settlements even on a bank holiday, thereby, ensuring liquidity at all times.

About BharatPe
BharatPe was founded in 2018 with the vision of making financial inclusion a reality for Indian merchants. In 2018, BharatPe launched India’s first UPI interoperable QR code, the first zero MDR payment acceptance service. In 2020, post-Covid, BharatPe also launched card acceptance terminals – BharatSwipe. Currently serving 1 crore merchants across 400 cities, the company is a leader in UPI offline transactions, processing 18 crores+ UPI transactions per month (annualized Transaction Processed Value of US$ 20 Bn in payments). The company has already facilitated disbursement of loans totalling to over ₹7500 crores to over 400,000 merchants. BharatPe’s POS business processes payments of over US$ 4 bn annually on its machines. BharatPe has raised over US$ 650 million in equity till date. The company’s list of marquee investors includes Tiger Global, Dragoneer Investment Group, Steadfast Capital, Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital. In June 2021, the company announced the acquisition of PAYBACK India, the country’s largest multi-brand loyalty program company with 100 million+ members. In October 2021, the consortium of Centrum Financial Services Limited (Centrum) and BharatPe, was issued a Small Finance Bank (SFB) license by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). BharatPe also made its entry in the Buy Now Pay Later segment with the launch of postpe in October 2021.