PayU India and BillDesk run complementary businesses within India’s digital payment industry. Together, the two expect to create a financial ecosystem handling 4 billion transactions annually, which is about four times PayU’s current level in India.

Founded in 2014, PayU India provides payment aggregation services that enable merchants (and other entities) to receive payments from their customers across various digital payment methods. Shares of PayU India are indirectly held by Prosus N.V. (“Prosus”), a global consumer internet group and one of the leading technology investors in the world.

Prosus has a primary listing on Euronext Amsterdam. Naspers Limited, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, holds 73.6% voting rights in Prosus. The proposed acquisition will see PayU become one of the leading online payment providers globally by total payment volume (TPV).

IIL, which is an unlisted public limited company, uses the name “BillDesk” as its brand name in India. IIL also provides payment aggregation services that enable merchants (and other entities) to receive payments from customers across various digital payment methods. Founded in 2000 by MN Srinivasu, Ajay Kaushal and Karthik Ganapathy, BillDesk has now emerged as one of the largest bill payment ecosystems in the country.

BillDesk's net profit for 2020-21 stood at ₹270 crore, up from ₹231 crore reported a year before. The company's total assets stand at ₹932 crore as of March 31, 2021. The existing shareholders of the company had entered into a share purchase agreement with PayU Payments for the proposed sale of 100% of the issued and paid-up share capital, on August 31, 2021.

The digital payments industry is thriving in India. According to the RBI, payment systems recorded a robust growth of 63.6% in terms of volume during 2021-22, on top of the expansion of 26.7% in the previous year. In value terms, the growth was 23.1% against a decline of 13.4% in the previous year, mainly due to robust growth observed in the large value payment system -- RTGS. The share of digital transactions in the total volume of non-cash retail payments increased to 99.3% during 2021-22, up from 98.8% in the previous year.

Prosus N.V.

CCI nod to PayU’s $4.7 billion acquisition of BillDesk