India is leading the world when it comes to digital payments. With a massive 46 percent share in global digital payments, India is the frontrunner in global digital payments rankings. One of the prime factors behind India's success in digital payments is the cost of mobile data. As per a 2023 report in Firstpost, India ranks third in the list of countries selling the cheapest data plans in the world.
Coming back to the digital payments space in India, there is a series of FinTechs for Indians in the market. Some of the leading FinTechs offering digital payments include Paytm, PhonePe, Cred, Razorpay, BharatPe, and Google Pay. Today, we are going to talk about the inspirational journey of one of India's leading FinTechs, Phone Pay, which is worth Rs. 99,000 crore. It was founded back in December 2015 and is considered as India's second most trusted digital payments platform after Paytm.
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The platform hit 500 million lifetime registered users in 2023, which speaks everything about its stature in India's digital payments space. The platform is accessible in eleven different languages and is one of India's most widely used smartphone applications. In July 2023, Phone Pay announced that customers will now be able to pay their income tax directly from the app. It was a ground-breaking feature in Phone Pay's journey and clearly shows how far it has come.
While everyone is aware of Phone Pay and most of us use it to make payments, only a few people are aware of the man who built it from scratch. Thus, today, we are going to set the spotlight on Phone Pay's Founder and CEO, Sameer Nigam. According to a report in Startup Talky, Sameer was born in 1978 in Bengaluru but completed his formal schooling from DPS Noida. For graduation, he went to University of Mumbai, from where he completed a degree in Computer Engineering.
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For his post-graduation degree, Sameer Nigam took admission to the prestigious University of Arizona, where he pursued a Master of Science degree in Computer Engineering. After gaining substantial knowledge in Computer Engineering, Sameer did a Master of Business Administration in Entrepreneurship from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
After completing his higher studies, Sameer Nigam kick-started his professional journey and worked at multiple companies before joining Shopzilla in May 2001. The entrepreneur served as the Director of Search Product Development at Shopzilla from May 2001 to June 2007. During his time at Shopzilla, he learnt a lot of things about business administration and launched his business venture, Mime360, in 2009. For the uninitiated, Mime360 was a distribution channel that caught Flipkart's attention, and the latter acquired it, as it had the potential to become the next big thing.
Sameer Nigam joined Flipkart in October 2011 and served as Vice President and Senior Vice President at the e-commerce company. After almost four years, Sameer left Flipkart with a lot of experience and utilised it to lay the foundation of Phone Pay in 2015. However, in 2016, Flipkart once again acquired Sameer's other company, Phone Pay, after Mime360. The deal was a game-changer for Sameer as the FxMart license was transferred to Phone Pay. In the same year, Phone Pay partnered with Yes Bank and launched their UPI-based payment application. In the following years, Sameer's company made many altercations to provide its customers with the best facilities and features.
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However, in 2023, Phone Pay finally announced its separation from Flipkart, whose majority stakes are owned by US retail giant, Walmart. In January, Phone Pay completed its domicile shift from the US to India, and within a year, it became the first fintech platform to enable cross-border transactions. During a conversation on a YouTube channel, Sameer Nigam revealed that the investors of Phone Pay had to pay almost Rs. 8,000 crore in order to bring it back to India.
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According to a report in News 18, Sameer Nigam's Phone Pay is worth Rs. 99,000 crore. Yes! You read is right. It's incredible how Sameer, who once worked at Flipkart, went on to build Phone Pay, a company that was acquired by the former. As of now, Phone Pay is considered as a shoulder-to-shoulder rival of Paytm, and the stakes are high that it could turn the gear and surpass in the coming years. Talking about Sameer's personal life, he is married to a Mumbai-based strategy consultant, and they have a son and a daughter.
The entrepreneur Sameer Nigam prefers to live a low-key life and rarely talks about his family in public. He is an inspiration for so many people, as he never let his dream of starting a company die, even in his 30s, when most people settle for what they have. That is the reason why Sameer's company, Phone Pay, is currently India's most-used platform for making digital payments.
What are your thoughts on Sameer Nigam's vision as an entrepreneur? Let us know.
Also Read: Zepto's Co-Founder, Kaivalya Vohra's Story: How A College Dropout Built A Rs. 7,428 Cr Company At 20
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