British fintech giant Revolut has pumped Rs 340 crore (roughly $45.5 million) into Revolut India as a part of its first tranche of investments in its Indian arm, a top executive told ET on Monday.
The investments are for Revolut’s first cross-border remittance product in India, which it plans to launch in the second half of 2022. The company is still in talks with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to procure the necessary licences for its products.
Founded in 2015, Revolut provides banking services, international remittances and peer-to-peer payments. It also offers a prepaid debit card that allows users to make ATM withdrawals. Over the past year, the company has diversified into stock trading, crypto investments, travel bookings and e-commerce in a bid to become a financial super app.
In India, Revolut is bullish on domestic remittances and will look to offer Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments to Indian consumers along with its flagship international cards. Over the next few years, the company is gearing up to also launch trading and investments, and debut credit-based products for consumers and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In July 2021, the company raised $800 million in a funding round led by Japan’s Soft
Bank and New York-based Tiger Global at a valuation of $33 billion, making it one of the most valuable fintech in the world after US-based Stripe and Sweden’s Klarna. It was looking to leverage the funds to ramp up its play in the US, India and Latin America.
The company has also been scouting local acquisitions to turbocharge its growth in India.“The ambition is to customise and bring in all the financial services present on the Revolut app internationally to Indian audiences,” said Paroma Chatterjee, chief executive officer at Revolut India. “With existing apps already catering to domestic remittances, differentiation for Revolut is cross-border remittances. We will bring the entire payment suite including cards to address all forms of customer payment needs.”
Revolut incorporated its Indian entity in April 2021 and kicked off operations by July. It is currently working to comply with RBI’s guidelines on data localisation, apart from ramping up its hires across engineering and innovation. It plans to increase its Indian team to 300 members over the next 12 months, Chatterjee told ET.
Of the total hires, close to 50% will be dedicated to regulatory compliance, analytics and business support functions focused on India and Asia-Pacific. Revolut is also building an engineering hub in India, its second-largest after the UK, which will support innovation in key international markets of Europe and Latin America.
“Once we have launched payments, the roadmap will then move to trade and investments. With Revolut having multiple trading licences in international geographies it can offer a simplified global trading experience to Indian users as well,” Chatterjee said. “In India, RBI is trying to drive a digital banking licence framework. We are working with Niti Aayog to help frame what the framework could look like.”
Revolut also has been offering crypto investments globally on its platform since 2017. However, the company has no immediate plans to launch crypto trading for Indian users. Chatterjee declined to share details on the matter.
US-based Stripe, which was last valued at $95 billion, has also been ramping up its India play with plans to launch payment services for merchants. In October 2021 it made its first Indian acquisition, Recko, a platform that allows businesses to track and automate payment reconciliations. Soon after, the fintech giant also invested in online taxation and fintech software firm Clear (formerly ClearTax), participating in its $75 million fundraise.
