BharatPe further strengthens its leadership team: Appoints Kohinoor Biswas as Head-Consumer Lending

Kohinoor is an experienced banking financial services leader with 14+ years of experience in various aspects of consumer lending and payments

New Delhi, June 05, 2023: BharatPe, India’s leading name in the fintech ecosystem, has announced the appointment of Kohinoor Biswas as the Head - Consumer Lending. Kohinoor brings with him over 14 years of experience in various aspects of consumer lending, cards portfolio management, business strategy, and digital initiatives. At BharatPe, he will be responsible for leading the entire postpe business, the credit- first consumer vertical of BharatPe. Kohinoor will be reporting to Nalin Negi, CFO and Interim CEO, BharatPe and will be building the consumer lending vertical. This is the third leadership appointment for BharatPe in 2023. The company earlier announced the appointment of Aparna Kuppuswamy as Chief Risk Officer, BharatPe Group and Sandeep Indurkar as Chief Business Officer- Banking and Alliances.

Kohinoor Biswas is a hands-on professional from the banking and financial services industry, and has held leadership positions in prominent banks and financial institutions in India and abroad, during the course of his career. He has extensive experience in Cards Business & P&L management, Risk & Analytics, Credit policy, and Cards & Mobile Payments Technology. Prior to joining BharatPe, he was the Head of Credit Cards Portfolio at ICICI Bank and he spearheaded overall credit cards strategy driving cards spends, loyalty, balance build-up through emi-zation & Personal Loan on Cards and the overall P&L for the Credit Card business. Prior to ICICI Bank, Kohinoor was the Vertical Head for Credit Card Portfolio at HDFC Bank. He has also been associated with companies like Intellect Design Arena Ltd, JP Morgan Chase and American Express. Kohinoor is a Post Graduate from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Commenting on the appointment, Nalin Negi, CFO and interim CEO, BharatPe said, "postpe, our consumer business, has been a great success story since its launch and clocks an annualized TPV of close to Rs. 5000 crores today. I believe there is a huge opportunity to build disruptive products to cater to a wide range of Gen Z and Millennial customers. I am confident that Kohinoor, with his in-depth knowledge of banking services, combined with his experience in cards and payments, will be a great asset to us as we build the consumer side of our business. I am delighted to welcome Kohinoor Biswas to the BharatPe family and look forward to partnering with him to build postpe 2.0. I am confident that Kohinoor's leadership and strategic thinking will help us achieve our ambitious growth plans in the consumer business.”

Kohinoor Biswas, Head- Consumer Lending, BharatPe, added, “BharatPe has witnessed huge success from its early days and is seen as one of the renowned names in the financial services industry today. It has emerged as one of the key enablers for millions of offline retailers across the country, with its portfolio of new-age fintech products. postpe, while a late entrant in the consumer category, was a huge success from its early days. I am excited to join the BharatPe team as the Head of Consumer Lending. I look forward to strengthening the existing relationships with the postpe customers by offering new credit products as well as new payment and commerce use cases, With the digital ecosystem in India evolving and maturing, I am confident that we will be able to build new-age lending products that appeal to a larger customer set.”

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+. In January 2023, BharatPe Group received an in-principle nod from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as an online payment aggregator. Recently, the company announced that it has acquired a majority stake in Trillion Loans, a renowned NBFC (Non- Banking Financial Company).