BharatPe has recently bid for PMC Bank—along with Centrum—and the joint venture has received in-principle approval to set up a small finance bank. What is going to be their banking plans? Since the transaction network has become stronger, Ashneer wants to focus on the monetisation part, which is the lending business. "We want to build an outstanding loan book of $1 billion from the current $100 million in the next two years," he says. He has a plan ready to expand the operations to 200 cities from 130 in this year.
During the time of Covid-19 and lockdowns, the transaction volume has grown five times for the fintech. "We currently process annualised transactions worth $10-12 billion, compared with $2 billion pre-Covid," says Ashneer. They also target to increase the transaction volume to $30 billion, while building the loan book.