BharatPe pushes growth pedal harder: Facilitates over INR 3600 Cr in loans in Q1, FY23

·         112% QoQ growth in disbursals facilitated via BharatPe’s NBFC partners

·         Recorded 50%+ growth in TPV vs last quarter

·         BharatPe facilitated disbursals of INR 1400 crores in loans in June 2022

Mumbai, July 05, 2022 (GNI): BharatPe, one of India’s fastest growing fintech companies, today announced that it has closed one of the highest growth quarters in the company’s history. The company doubled up on the successful last quarter (Q4 of FY22), by facilitating over INR 3600 Cr in loans in the first quarter of FY23; recording a staggering growth of 112% over the last quarter. BharatPe also hit an all-time high of US$ 18.5bn in annualized TPV – a growth of 50%+ over Q4, FY22.

The company facilitated disbursals to over 1.2 lac merchants in Q1, FY23, up from 66,000 merchants in the last quarter of FY22. The top merchant categories for loans included grocery, food and beverages, roadside kiosks and street vendors, as well as retail outlets. Additionally, BharatPe’s other product offerings, including the card acceptance POS businesses (BharatSwipe) and its Investment Platform for merchants recorded consistent growth (over 30%+) vs. the last quarter.

Speaking on this achievement, Mr. Suhail Sameer, CEO, BharatPe, said, ‘The pandemic has provided the much-needed tailwinds for the growth of digital payments and lending in the country. With our stronghold in the new power centers of lending (technology and data), BharatPe has been at the forefront of this change. Post a successful FY22 that we closed with a 3x growth in merchant loans, 2.5x growth in payments and a 4x jump in revenue, BharatPe has recorded its’ best ever quarter in Q1, FY23. We are on an incredible growth journey, driven by huge shift in behavior towards digital payment modes, rise of UPI and the increased acceptance of new-age fintech products. We have closed the last quarter with a 112% growth in total loans facilitated. These numbers are a testimony of the trust that millions of offline merchant partners and consumers have bestowed in us.”

Added Suhail “This dream run would not have been possible without the commitment and hard work of our world class team. We have bettered our performance of last quarter by a mile and will continue to focus on scaling our key segments – payments and credit businesses. We remain core to our mission of bringing financial inclusion to the last mile – across tier 3,4 and 5 cities and towns. We are on track to achieve our target of US$ 2 bn in loans facilitated (through our NBFC/ bank partners) across both consumer and merchant business by the end of FY23 as well as scaling payments TPV to US$ 30 bn by March 2023. Additionally, we will continue to explore partnerships with banks to launch new-age fintech products.”

Moving beyond the straight-jacketed approach of lending, BharatPe has sachetized credit in the form of small-ticket, short-term, and easy-to-repay loans up to INR 10 lakhs, in partnership with our lending partners. With flexible tenure options up to 12 months, the tailor-made solution is attuned to the occupation cycle of small businesses. BharatPe, earlier this year, in partnership with its’ NBFC partners, also forayed into secured lending, and plans to scale the gold-based lending product to 20 cities by the end of the financial year, stated in the press release.

About 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 18 crores+ UPI transactions per month (annualized Transaction Processed Value of US$ 18.5 Bn in annualised payments). The company has already facilitated disbursement of loans totalling to over ₹7000 crores to over 400,000 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, 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 grand entry in the Buy Now Pay Later segment with the launch of postpe in October 2021.ends GNI SG