PhonePe Names TerraPay Veteran Ritesh Pai as CEO — International Payments

India-based digital payments company PhonePe has appointed TerraPay veteran Ritesh Pai as CEO — International Payments, saying he will lead the company’s global expansion plans.

“Ritesh has been an early believer and staunch supporter of the company and was very instrumental in our early UPI[Unified Payments Interface] success story,” PhonePe CEO and founder Sameer Nigam said in a Friday (Jan. 5) press release. “I’m delighted that he’s joined us to lead our international growth plans.”

Pai was most recently president of products and solutions at TerraPay, according to the release. There, he was responsible for launching and implementing payment products and solutions globally.

Before that, Pai served as senior group president and chief digital officer at Yes Bank, where he led the bank’s digital strategy and transformation and launched partnerships with FinTech players, the release said.

As a leader in the digital payments sector, Pai has launched innovative solutions and structured strategic business partnerships globally, per the release.

“I am excited to join PhonePe as it takes significant strides in shaping the future of digital payments on a global scale,” Pai said in the release. “PhonePe has achieved market leadership in India with its unwavering commitment to product innovation and building customer-centric solutions. I am confident that this same focus will help us expand our footprint beyond national borders, taking our payment technology to an international audience.”

PhonePe has 500 million registered users and 37 million merchants across India, according to the press release. Beyond digital payments, the company has expanded into financial services like insurance, digital gold, mutual funds, stock broking and lending. It has also entered adjacent tech-enabled businesses, including hyper-local shopping and a localized App Store.

When entering the stock brokerage industry with the launch of Share.Market in August, PhonePe said it aims to provide market intelligence, a scalable technology platform, and an exceptional customer experience for both investors and traders.

In June, the chief financial officer of Walmart, which owns PhonePe, said PhonePe and eCommerce platform Flipkart could play a key role in Walmart’s goal of doubling its overseas gross merchandise volume to $200 billion in five years.

“It is not crazy to think that both those businesses could be $100 billion businesses in the future,” Walmart CFO John David Rainey said.