In a major initiative towards making financial technology a high priority, top ecommerce marketplace Flipkart has appointed its chief technology officer Ravi Garikipati as the head of its fintech department with immediate effect. Flipkart chief executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy revealed this in an internal email to company employees on Tuesday.
The engineering division of the company, which was under Garikipati, will now report directly to Krishnamurthy. Flipkart will also look at bringing in a new head of engineering. “Currently, areas such as consumer credit and supply-chain financing are still at a nascent stage in India due to unevolved credit and risk assessment models, but that is changing fast,” Krishnamurthy said in the email. ET viewed a copy of the email.
“For us at Flipkart, fintech can help expand our affordability charter, drive penetration of our products and services in smaller towns and cities, and create offerings that are unparalleled in India,” it said.
Garikipati joined Flipkart in 2015 as an entrepreneur-in-residence who headed the advertising business, before getting elevated to chief technology officer and head of engineering at the company.
His appointment as head of fintech comes as the company has been showing immense interest in building out its financial technologies, using the vast trove of data collected on consumers and sellers over the years.
ET had reported in June that Flipkart was in talks with a clutch of digital lending startups to start selling financial products.
Flipkart’s recent MCA filings showed that the company plans to sell insurance products on its platform. The filings had stated that Flipkart will initially sell products in general, life and health insurance as it slowly expands to other categories such as motor insurance. It can start selling insurance products after obtaining the necessary nod from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.
The Bengaluru-headquartered company has also applied for an NBFC (non-banking finance company) licence to be able to provide loans to its sellers. Flipkart already offers access to loans to sellers on its platform in partnerships with banks and NBFCs.
Flipkart’s plans to build a financial technology play is different from its consumer payments play PhonePe. The firm had announced an investment commitment of $500 million in PhonePe, indicating its seriousness towards the financial technology sector. The company also launched a lowcost point-of-sale device to develop a strong offline play.
THE WAY TO THE TOP
Garikipati joined Flipkart as an entrepreneur-in-residence who headed the ad business, before getting elevated to chief technology officer and head of engineering.
URL Link-https://retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/e-commerce/e-tailing/flipkart-cto-ravi-garikipati-to-head-fintech-department/61844154
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