BharatPe crosses 18 Mn monthly UPI transactions; hits $1 Bn TPV

BharatPe, a QR code-based payment app, which enables offline merchants to accept digital payments through any Unified Payment Interface (UPI)-enabled apps such as Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay, BHIM, Mobikwik, Freecharge and Truecaller, has crossed $18 million transaction volume mark on a monthly basis.

The figure might not have surprised you in front of incumbents like Paytm, PhonePe's volume, but BharatPe has emerged as one of the fastest-growing fintech company focusing on offline merchants and retailers where the formers have captured the market.

This is 9X growth in the last eight months, and it is further targeting 30 million UPI transactions in a month by Diwali. Within ten months of coming into digital payments game, the Sequoia Capital-backed firm has also claimed to cross $ 1 billion annualised TPV.

In terms of UPI-focused transaction, BharatPe has challenged government-regulated BHIM, which had achieved 18 million figure only once since its inception.

Apart from merchant-focused digital payments, it has started extending small value, short-duration loans to merchants by partnering with a few non-banking finance companies such as Apollo Finvest.

Initially, it plans to offer loans with ticket sizes between the range of Rs 10,000 to Rs 1 lakh at a minimum interest rate of 1.67%.

Lending is a part of the company's long term monetisation plan where it's planning to convert 20-25% of total merchant base on the platform using its credit services. Besides, the company is also planning to get into B2B (business-to-business) commerce via the marketplace model.

With over 2,000 employees, BharatPe is looking to swell the team size and hire 2,500 more employees in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and other cities by December 2019.

The company is in the last leg to raise $75 million Series B round at about $350 million valuation, which is quite impressive for a year-old startup. Entrackr exclusively reported about BharatePe's Series B round.

According to a TOI report, the US-based fin-tech-focused investor-Ribbit Capital is also joining the.

As far as competition is concerned, BharatPe will have to fight against Paytm which claims to have a 70% market share in UPI-based merchant payments followed by PhonePe.