Fintech unicorn BharatPe has appointed former SBI Card official Nalin Negi as its chief financial officer, in a bid to make the company operationally profitable by end of this fiscal.
Negi, who has over two decades' experience in the banking and financial services sector, will be also leading financial readiness for the company as it prepares for the public listing. Nalin will be reporting to chief executive officer at BharatPe, Suhail Sameer.
“His (Nalin) knowledge of banking and financial services will help us launch and scale fintech products that are future-ready and aligned to our mission of driving financial inclusion in the country. Also, Nalin’s experience of listing SBI Card will be instrumental for us as we aim to go public in FY25,” said Sameer.
Negi, a Delhi University alumnus, has earlier worked with largely reputed organizations such as GE Capital and SBI Card. In his latest stint, Nalin was the CFO of SBI Card (earlier known as GE Capital SBI Card) for over 10 years where he spearheaded a number of key strategic initiatives for the company including leading SBI Card’s IPO in March 2020. Prior to that, he was associated with American Express (India) Pvt Ltd, EXL Service (India) Pvt Ltd, Nestle India Ltd, and ITC Ltd.
“BharatPe has been the flagbearer for digital payments in India and has also been at the forefront of solving the credit gap for SMEs and offline retailers in the country, having closed Q1 of FY23 with over Rs 3600 crore in total loans facilitated in the first quarter of FY23 and over $18 billion in annualized TPV in payments.
This is the second leadership announcement for BharatPe this year. In April 2022, the company had announced the appointment of Smriti Handa as the chief human resources officer.
Mint reported on Tuesday that BharatPe’s co-founder Bhavik Koladiya has ended his association with the company citing disagreements with the fintech firm’s management.
BharatPe was incorporated in March 2018 by Koladiya and Shashvat Nakrani (who was then studying at IIT-Delhi) as co-founders, each owning 50% of the company. Koladiya was the company’s face and negotiated with investors for funding. Three months later, in June 2018, Grover joined as the third co-founder.
The company since the beginning of the year has come under significant investor and media scrutiny after a tussle between Grover and the company’s board over alleged misappropriation of funds by the former. Grover later resigned from the company in March.
