BillDesk gets Rs.600 crore Investment

BillDesk a Mumbai based company into online payments solutions has raised over Rs. 600 crore from US-based payment firm Visa while Temasek Holding through Claymore Investments also participated in the round. As the Rupay’s marketshare has reached 65 per cent of the payments done through debit and credit cards, Whereas the foreign payments firm are also losing the market share in Indian. it could be a bold step from companies based out of US.

Billdesk is owned by India Ideas, was founded by M.N. Srinivasu, Karthik Ganapathy , and Ajay Kaushal. The company provides payment solutions for customers in e-commerce, financial services, retail, and other sectors. For the uninitiated, BillDesk is a financially independent company and is monitored as a participant under the Payments and Settlements Systems Act, 2007 that is regulated and supervised by the RBI.

As per the RoC filing , Visa has put in Rs 537.06 crore for 2.46 lakhs equity share at a price of Rs 21,832.04 each. At the same time, Billdesk received Rs 65.5 crore in lieu of 30,000 equity shares at the same rate from Claymore Investments. Whereas, the valuation of BillDesk is be estimated at around $1.8-1.9 billion.

Billdesk was reportedly in talks with payment giants including PayPal and American Express in search of a potential buyer as its PE investors seek the exit. A report says, last year, the company was asked to change its business model with the arrival of NPCI and its Bharat BillPay System. Now, all payments aggregators will have to be part of Bill Pay and obtain a license from RBI.

BillDesk is a profitable firms and processes over $60 billion in payments annually and competes with PayU, CCAvenue, Razorpay, and Pine Labs.

Lastly, this is a bold step from Visa to invest in India at a time when it’s facing the heat of data localisation norms and tax demands from the Indian government. Visa along with Mastercard and American Express have been asked to pay around 15 per cent tax on their income in the country.