Revolut is laying the groundwork for expansion into India, appointing a new CEO and sparking a recruitment drive to hire 300 staff to serve its global business operations.
The firm, which offers a digital alternative to traditional banking products, has appointed Paroma Chatterjee, formerly of Lendingkart, Via.com, Flipkart and Airtel Money, as its CEO in India.
Chatterjee will build and lead Revolut’s subsidiary in India, define and implement the business strategy, hire the team and manage licence applications and "any potential acquisitions" in the market.
Revolut has already recruited heads of operations and legal for the country and is using India’s strong talent pool to recruit across multiple functions including HR, finance, marketing, recruitment, compliance, risk and technology. The multi-million pound investment in the project will position Revolut's India subsidiary serve to act as an operations hub for the firm's global business.
In total, Revolut has earmarked a £25 million spend on building the business over the next five years, with plans to launch in 2022.
With a population of 1.3 billion people and growing acceptance of digital payments, India would be a huge market for Revolut, where it will compete with the likes of SoftBank-backed fintech Paytm, which is used by many Indians to make payments by scanning QR codes.
Nik Storonsky, CEO and founder at Revolut, says: “India is a core market in our expansion strategy with a huge supply of talent, and we’re excited to tap into that talent pool to help Revolut go from strength to strength.”
Revolut's launch in India is the latest step in its international expansion plans, following successful roll outs in Singapore and Australia in 2019, and the US and Japan in 2020. Revolut has also stated its plans to open in a number of markets across South America and deepen its existing presence in Asia-Pacific.
The company is currently is preparing a new fundraising round that would value the digital banking app at between $10 billion and $15 billion.