Revolut, one of the UK-based largest digital banking platforms, on Thursday announced the hiring of Paroma Chatterjee as the head of its operations in India.
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Paroma Chatterjee has executive stints in Indian start-ups like Flipkart, Via.com, LendingKart and across banks like ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank. She was also one of the top 25 women leaders of Asia according to the Financial Technology Report 2020.
The $5.5 billion British fintech giant will be investing $25 million in India over the next five years as it plans to launch its app for the subcontinent in 2022. The company intends to hire over 300 employees in its Indian subsidiary and use it as a global base of operations.
“India is a core market in our expansion strategy with a huge supply of talent, and we’re excited to tap into that talent pool to help Revolut go from strength to strength,” said Revolut CEO and co-founder Nik Storonsky.
Accessing India’s 1.3 billion (130 crores) population market can be a huge boost to Revolut’s plan to double its current valuation to over $10 billion. The brand is already ranked among one of the most valuable fintech companies ever created in the UK. Nik Storonksy has previously said that he plans to take the company to $20 billion before taking it public.
The digital bank will be looking to target the huge remittance market in India. India is the largest receiver of remittances, money sent by expats and citizens living in other countries back to their homes. Even as the amount of remittances declined last year, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, India still received over $76 billion in payments from NRIs and expats.
Revolut will be competing with Paytm, the Indian fintech major backed by SoftBank, which already has a large presence and user base in the country. Currently, Google Pay, Paytm, and PhonePe account for over 91 percent of all UPI transactions in the country.
However, Revolut isn’t limiting itself to India. The company plans to enter other lucrative Asian markets like Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, and even China in the next 18 months. Revolut is also planning on re-launch itself in Canada in 2022 after it exited the country earlier this year. Niko Storonksy plans to make the company into a global financial super-app. He has even applied for a banking charter in the US for the company, citing it as an integral part of the journey to achieve global super-app status.