BharatPe bolsters leadership team: Appoints Sandeep Indurkar as CBO- Banking and Alliances

Seasoned financial services professional with 18+ years of experience in the banking sector

Ex ICICI Bank senior leader is a renowned name in the banking fraternity

New Delhi, May 18, 2023: BharatPe, India’s leading name in the fintech industry, today announced the appointment of Sandeep Indurkar as its Chief Business Officer- Banking and Alliances. A renowned leader in the banking industry, Sandeep spent 18+ years with ICICI Bank, where he spearheaded the digital transformation agenda. Sandeep will be reporting to Nalin Negi, CFO and Interim CEO, BharatPe and will spearhead all banking-related partnerships at BharatPe. He will also lead the P&L for BharatSwipe, the company’s POS business as well as the roll out of BharatPe Speaker across markets. Additionally, he will be leading the partnership with Unity Bank as well as the NBFC partners of BharatPe.

Sandeep is a highly accomplished digital transformation expert, known for his exceptional contributions to the banking industry. With over 18 years of experience in digital channels and payment space, Sandeep has worked across various roles in ICICI Bank, one of India's leading banks. During his stint at ICICI Bank, Sandeep led the digital agenda, ensuring that the bank stayed ahead of the curve in the fast-evolving digital landscape. An expert in digital banking, digital payments, and mobile banking, Sandeep has been instrumental in developing and implementing innovative digital solutions to enhance customer experience and improve operational efficiencies for ICICI Bank. Sandeep is a Chartered Accountant by education.

Commenting on the appointment, Nalin Negi, CFO and Interim CEO, BharatPe said, “While we continue to scale our lending business and address the credit gap for merchants, it becomes important for us to focus a lot more on building future ready payment products, to be ahead of the game. I believe that Sandeep’s in-depth understanding of banking services as well as new-age banking products like digital banking and digital payments will be instrumental in our next phase of growth as we build cutting edge payment products for offline as well as online merchants and consumers. At BharatPe, we are dedicated to our mission of empowering businesses and customers with a range of world-class financial products. In the times to come, strategic partnerships between banks, other traditional financial service companies, and new-age fintech companies will be the key differentiator to facilitate the best-in-class experience for our merchant partners and customers. Sandeep’s extensive experience of working in the banking industry will enable us to foster lucrative alliances. I welcome Sandeep to BharatPe and look forward to partnering with him in building BharatPe as India’s most preferred fintech company.”

Added Sandeep Indurkar, Chief Business Officer- Banking and Alliances, BharatPe, “BharatPe has been a market disruptor from day one and one of the key enablers for driving digital payment acceptance ecosystem across offline merchant community. With its innovative products, it has been able to bring millions of offline merchants under the ambit of the digital economy. The company has also done stupendous work in addressing the credit gap for offline retailers and kirana store owners across the country. I am excited to join this young company and be a part of its next phase. I look forward to strengthening the market for BharatSwipe and Speaker. Also, I look forward to fostering the right partnerships with relevant players in the financial services ecosystem, with the objective of making larger impact across merchant businesses. Additionally, I am excited to work with the Product and Technology team at BharatPe to build next-gen payments and fintech products for merchants and consumers.”

About BharatPe Group

BharatPe was founded in 2018 to make 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 a card acceptance terminal – BharatSwipe. Currently serving 1 crore merchants across 400+ cities, the company is a leader in UPI offline transactions, processing 300 million+ UPI transactions per month (annualized Transaction Processed Value of over US$ 24 Bn in payments). The company has already facilitated the disbursement of loans totaling close to INR 80B+. BharatPe’s POS business processes payments of over US$ 3.5 bn annually on its machines. BharatPe has raised over US$ 583 million in equity 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 (Rebranded to Zillion), 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 entered the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) segment with the launch of postpe in October 2021. postpe has over 8 million downloads and an annualized TPV of close to INR 50B+. Recently, BharatPe Group received an in-principle nod from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as an online payment aggregator.