Flipkart-owned PhonePe looking at acquisitions that make strategic sense

PhonePe says that it gets approached by several small companies and will make an acquisition when it makes sense for the product, platform and consumer.
Flipkart-owned PhonePe looking at acquisitions that make strategic sense
Flipkart-owned PhonePe looking at acquisitions that make strategic sense

As Flipkart-owned PhonePe charts its journey towards being an independent, full-fledged financial services business, the UPI-based payments major is looking to acquire smaller companies that make strategic sense to the company.

“We do get approached by and keep talking to smaller companies which have an agility either in terms of kind of services that make sense for PhonePe users or companies with very specific product capabilities that enhance the offering on our platform itself,” Rahul Chari, Co-founder and CTO of PhonePe told The News Minute.

PhonePe, which started as a UPI-based payments platform, has been growing to become a payments container and a financial services business and in process, the company is engaging with various small companies and Rahul says that when it makes sense for the product, platform and consumer, it will definitely go ahead and make the acquisition.

Most recently, PhonePe launched a platform that allows other companies to create micro apps that can be accessed from the PhonePe app. Having started with a partnership with Redbus, the larger strategy behind this is to make payments interoperable and make PhonePe larger than just a money transfer platform. It will be looking at more partnerships with food delivery, ticketing and entertainment companies.

PhonePe seems to have to large strategies for its business. One is to be a payments container, while the other is to grow into a financial services business that offers wealth management and insurance products.

As part of its strategy to be a payments container, PhonePe recently partnered with Axis Bank-owned Freecharge and Reliance Jio-owned JioMoney to allow both the wallets to pay at locations where PhonePe is accepted.

Financial services is the other focus. According to a report in Mint on January 9, it is looking to build an independent unit where it will co-create insurance and mutual funds products in partnerships with large financial services firms.

As competition in the digital payments and FinTech companies gets fierce, PhonePe seems to be banking on partnerships to grow each of its business segments and stay on-par with players such as Paytm and Mobikwik. 

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