In preparation for its IPO, PhonePe relocates its headquarters from Singapore to India

PhonePe, a provider of financial and payment services, announced on October 3 that it has finished the process of relocating its domicile from Singapore to India in preparation for its upcoming initial public offering (IPO).

The procedure, according to the Walmart and Flipkart-owned company, was finished in three parts. First, over the course of the past year, PhonePe relocated all operations and subsidiaries of PhonePe Singapore to PhonePe Pvt Ltd (India). This included its wealth management and insurance broking services.

The development of a new employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and the migration of 3000+ PhonePe Group workers' existing ESOPs by issuing new ESOPs under PhonePe India's new plan were both recently authorised by PhonePe's board, the firm said in a statement.

Last but not least, PhonePe has transferred ownership of the recently purchased IndusOS Appstore (OSLabs Pte Ltd) from Singapore to India in accordance with the recently liberalised automatic Overseas Direct Investment (ODI) guidelines.

After a year-long dispute with IndusOS' principal shareholder Affle Global Pte Ltd, the purchase of IndusOS was finalised in July of this year. But following a series of discussions, both parties had come to an agreeable agreement.

These moves have resulted in PhonePe Pvt Ltd (India) being the sole owner of all PhonePe Group businesses and entities, according to PhonePe.

Sameer Nigam, co-founder and CEO of PhonePe, said that the business is in the process of transferring its registered corporation from Singapore to India in an interview for CNN News18's Bits to Billions in June. He had claimed that the idea had already received board approval and that the process' completion was just a matter of time.

"We are an Indian-made business. We have every office, data centre, and staff here. There is no reason why we shouldn't help this market generate money, "In Nigam's words.

PhonePe's decision to register in Singapore and the US in order to take advantage of the local legislation contrasts sharply with the actions of many companies and unicorns who have switched offshore.

Once its primary businesses start to become profitable, which it intends to do by 2023, the company plans to go public. PhonePe currently holds a 47 percent market share in monthly volumes for the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), making it the industry leader.

The business uses UPI as a sales channel to cross-sell other financial services like mutual funds and insurance.

"We want to reach a point where our new-age efforts have enough scale and product-market fit that our revenue streams are sufficiently diverse. I don't want to use public funds to fund irrational experimentation "In Nigam's words.

Since its founding in 2015 by Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer, PhonePe has expanded into a variety of mutual funds and insurance products, including tax-saving funds, liquid funds, international travel insurance, life insurance, and insurance for the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to launching its own sound device for merchants to compete with Paytm and BharatPe, the company also competes with Google Pay and Paytm. According to a previous Moneycontrol article, PhonePe is also preparing to introduce its own payment gateway.