Fintech major PhonePe on Monday, August 30, announced that it has been issued an Insurance Broking licence from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI). Last year, PhonePe entered the Insurtech sector with a limited insurance ‘corporate agent’ licence, which restricted the company to partnering with only three insurance companies per category. Now, with this new ‘Direct Broking’ license, PhonePe can distribute insurance products from all insurance companies in India.
The new broking licence also allows PhonePe to start offering personalised product recommendations to its 300+ million users, and offering a more diverse portfolio of insurance products for consumers.
PhonePe forayed into the insurance segment in January 2020 as a ‘corporate agent’, and has since launched offerings across general insurance, term insurance and health insurance. “The overwhelming response to its early insurance product launches from millions of customers, encouraged the company to apply for an Insurance Broking license so it can rapidly expand its insurance offering for consumers,” PhonePe said in a statement.
“This license is a big milestone in our insurance journey. PhonePe is India’s fastest growing insurtech and 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 & Head of Insurance at PhonePe.
PhonePe, which has over 300 million registered users on its platform, said it is processing nearly 1.5 billion transactions per month, and 80 per cent of its users are from Tier-2, 3 regions.
Last year, One97 Communications Ltd, which owns financial services platform Paytm, received its insurance broking licence from the IRDAI, allowing it to offer insurance products across various categories such as life, health, and auto.