PhonePe gets insurance broking licence
The digital payment company can now distribute all insurance products
image for illustrative purpose
Payments major PhonePe has received an insurance broking licence from Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), which is likely to help the company to boost its fees income from insurance segment. The Bengaluru-headquartered company has a limited insurance corporate agent licence since last year, which restricts the company to partner with only three insurance companies per category. However, with the new direct broking licence, PhonePe can distribute all insurance products across the insurance companies.
"This license is a big milestone in our insurance journey. This move to broking will give us further momentum and accelerate our growth in this space. We are building a robust, full-service platform for our deeply engaged customer base through innovative products in partnership with high quality insurers. This move will lead us closer to our goal of becoming a one-stop destination for all the insurance needs of our customers," said Gunjan Ghai, Vice President and Head of Insurance at PhonePe.
The fintech firm, which is part of the Walmart-owned Flipkart Group, has more than 300 million registered users. The company forayed into financial services in 2017 and has entered into distribution of various financial products including mutual funds, insurance products, digital gold among others. Last week, PhonePe also announced that it has got in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as an account aggregator. This licence will permit the company to launch its account aggregator platform that will enable free and instant exchange of financial data between the financial information users and financial information providers with due consent from customers, in a safe and secure manner.
The company has also applied for a stockbroking licence from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). PhonePe is the dominant player in the digital payments space that has clocked a new record of 1.5 billion transactions through unified payments interface or UPI in July, 2021.
