Valuations, access to capital spur fintechs' homecoming

Why are financial-technology (fintech) players moving back to India, or doing the reverse-flipping? The reasons are financial regulation, better access to capital, and improved valuations here, according to industry players and experts.

-  AJINKYA KAWALE

Industry experts Business Standard spoke to said this was a rising trend.

"The trend will sustain. Ultimately, investors are ready to pay the big tax burden of reverseflipping since valuations in India are better," said Vishwas Patel, joint managing director, Infibeam Avenues, and chairman, Payments Council of India (PCI).

After Walmart-backed PhonePe changed its domicile to India earlier this year, others followed suit wanting to switch their domicile could not be ascertained, according to Tracxn, a market-intelligence platform, there are close to 50 fintechs domiciled overseas currently.

At present, these fintechs operate across industries such as digital payments and lending, cryptocurrency exchanges, investment tech, and software as a service (SaaS).

They are domiciled in countries such as Singapore, Mauritius, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

"Established companies such as PhonePe, Groww, and Pine Labs, which have recently internalised or are in the process of internalising into India, demonstrate the increasing popularity of this process," said Harshita Srivastava, co-head of mergers and acquisitions and PE Practice, Nishith Desai Associates.