BharatPe appoints Nalin Negi as Chief Financial Officer

In his new role, Nalin will be spearheading the finance function for BharatPe and will be working towards making the company EBITDA positive by March 2023, the company said in a statement.

Additionally, he will be leading financial readiness for the company as it prepares for the IPO.

Nalin will be reporting to Suhail Sameer, CEO, BharatPe and will be working closely with the Board of BharatPe.

In line with his extensive experience in the banking and cards industry, Nalin will be working closely with the Senior Management team at BharatPe and help catapult growth across business lines.

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.

"Nalin is one of the highly respected names in the banking and financial services industry with over 25 years of experience across renowned brands like GE Capital and SBI Card," the company said.

In his last 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, thereby, making it the first pure-play credit card company to list on the stock exchanges in India.

Previously, Nalin was associated with American Express (India) Private Limited, EXL Service (India) Private Limited, Nestle India Limited, and ITC Limited.

Nalin holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce (Honors course) from Delhi University.

He is an associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Speaking on the appointment of Nalin, BharatPe CEO Suhail Sameer said, “BharatPe has been on a dream run and has clocked exponential business growth over the last year. As we focus on the next stage of growth and on building a sustainable and profitable business across both our business lines- merchant and consumer, I am confident that Nalin’s experience will be a huge asset for a new-age fintech company like ours.

"His in-depth 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. I am excited to welcome Nalin to the team and look forward to partnering with Nalin to build BharatPe as one of the most renowned fintech brands in the world.”

BharatPe CFO Nalin Negi said, “BharatPe’s has become a preferred and trusted partner for millions of offline merchants in just 4 years of launch. It 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 US$ 18 bn+ in annualized TPV in payments."

Negi said the next couple of years would be exciting as the company aimed to hit profitability and go public, and build India’s first truly Digital Bank.

"I am looking forward to partnering with Suhail and the leadership team at BharatPe for the next stage of growth of the company. I am hoping that we will script a great success story in BharatPe- one that will be a case study for new India.”