PhonePe, the financial services firm backed by Walmart, has announced a strategic reorganization, reshuffling the roles of its top management. Hemant Gala, who has been overseeing payments, banking, and financial services, will now take on the role of CEO at PhonePe’s lending business. Additionally, Vishal Gupta, the Product head, has been promoted to the position of CEO for PhonePe’s Insurance business. Both of these senior executives, who were former leaders at Flipkart, have been integral to PhonePe’s journey, having been with the company for the past seven years and playing pivotal roles in product development, design, risk management, and customer experience, contributing to the growth of the payments and merchants business.
Founder and CEO Sameer Nigam stated, “As we look to the future, we felt that this is also a great time to redesign the org, and elevate some of the key PhonePe executives to take on larger roles in the group. I would like to congratulate them as they take on their new roles, and help build multiple exciting new businesses for PhonePe Group.”
This reorganization comes in the context of PhonePe’s expansion into new business areas, including e-commerce and stockbroking with Pincode and Share Market app, an online payment gateway, a loan service for merchants in partnership with NBFCs and banks, a Point of Sale (PoS) device, as well as account aggregator services.
The company has appointed its Vice President of Offline Business, Vivek Lohcheb, as the CEO of the new app, Pincode. Lohcheb, who has been with the company for nearly six years, will be responsible for leading this new initiative. Ujjwal Jain has been promoted to the role of CEO of ShareMarket and will be in charge of the company’s Wealth and Broking business.
Sameer Nigam emphasized the crucial role these executives have played in driving PhonePe’s growth, and in their new roles, they will have end-to-end responsibility for managing these businesses, shaping their strategies, and driving growth in their respective verticals.
PhonePe, a fintech decacorn, reported a 77% increase in its consolidated revenue, reaching Rs 2,914 crore in FY23. It boasts a UPI market share of 50.54% in terms of total payments value as of March. PhonePe India Pvt Ltd, which encompasses its payments business, recorded an operating loss of Rs 1,755 crore in FY23, compared to Rs 1,612 crore the previous year. However, the payment subsidiary achieved EBITDA positivity on an adjusted basis, excluding the ESOP cost, a metric used by new-age firms.
In a significant milestone, PhonePe announced that its UPI payments app has surpassed 50 million registered users since its launch in August 2016. This achievement underscores PhonePe’s rapid growth, and Sameer Nigam expressed his optimism for the future, stating, “It feels almost surreal, yet, we have achieved only 50% of our vision statement of bringing digital payments to 100 crore Indians.” With one in three Indians now using the app, PhonePe has become the first Indian internet company to attain this scale globally.
