BharatPe launches Investment Platform for merchants

• The company to partner with RBI regulated entities to offer investment products

New Delhi, May 18, 2022: BharatPe, one of India’s fastest growing fintech companies, today announced the launch of Investment Platform for its merchant partners. This one-of-its-kind of platform will enable RBI regulated entities to market their investment products to the 8 million+ BharatPe merchants across the country. In the first phase, the company is going live with P2P investments and Bank deposit products with its partners on the platform. Currently, P2P investment product is being powered through RBI regulated NBFCs- LenDenClub and Liquiloans. BharatPe is also working on providing its merchants an option to invest in Fixed Deposits by Unity Small Finance Bank. Based on the success of the pilot, BharatPe now aims to facilitate investments for 20+ lac merchant partners over the next 12 months via this platform.

BharatPe merchants would be able to access the ‘Investment Platform’ on the BharatPe app by clicking on the ‘Investments’ tab. The investment offerings by LenDenClub and Liquiloans will allow the merchants to register as a lender with the P2P platforms and deploy their money against loans on these platforms. With the P2P lending product, merchants will have an option to earn interest of upto 12% per annum in the first phase; and around 8% on the Fixed deposit product. BharatPe intends to further diversify the offerings on the Investment Platform and offer a range of investment products under a single window, including mutual funds , ETFs, etc., in the coming months.

Speaking on the launch, Mr. Suhail Sameer, CEO, BharatPe, said “Over the last 2+ years, we have received an overwhelming response to the P2P lending product being offered in partnership with RBI regulated P2P NBFCs. With the launch of the Investment Platform, we intend to give our merchants a plethora of investment options to choose from. We believe that it should be the merchant who should have the power to decide which investment product and which partner he/she would like to invest with. With the Unity Small Finance Bank now operational, we are also looking forward to adding a range of investment products offered by banks, to our merchants. “

Added Suhail, “We are bullish about this category and are confident that this product will add tremendous value to our merchant partners. To make this a success, we will be adding a range of partners across investment categories in the coming months. We are committed to provide best-in-class, simple and secured investment experience to our merchant partners, across traditional and new age investment products. My aim is to make BharatPe’s Investment Platform the most sought after investment vehicle for millions of offline retailers in the country.”

Today, BharatPe is growing at a fast pace. It ended the last fiscal with 2.5x growth in payments TPV, 4x increase in revenue, 5x growth in credit facilitated and 3x growth in POS business over the last financial year. It’s BNPL product, postpe, is the fastest growing BNPL product in India with a TPV of US$ 60 mn in TPV, in just 6 months of launch. The company is targeting expansion to 300 cities and a TPV of US$ 30 bn by the end of current fiscal.

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 India’s only zero MDR card acceptance terminals – BharatSwipe. Currently serving over 80 lakh merchants across 225+ cities, the company is a leader in UPI offline transactions, processing 11 crores+ UPI transactions per month (annualized Transaction Processed Value of US$ 17+ Bn in payments). The company has already facilitated disbursement of loans totalling to over ₹3500 crores to over 300,000 merchants, since launch. BharatPe’s POS business processes payments of over US$ 4 bn annually on its POS machines. It has a network of 1.25 lac+ machines across cities. BharatPe has raised over US$ 650 million in equity and debt, 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, a 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 grand entry in the Buy Now Pay Later segment with the launch of postpe in October 2021.