Phi Commerce elevates Rajesh Londhe to CEO, targets international growth

Londhe will lead global strategy and international expansion, while former CEO Jose Thattil becomes executive chairman to oversee strategy, fundraising and partnerships

Pune-based payments firm Phi Commerce has named co-founder Rajesh Londhe its chief executive officer (CEO), with Jose Thattil, who previously held the role, moving up to executive chairman.

 

Londhe previously served as the head of payments at the company. He will lead the business, including global strategy and profit and loss (P&L), and drive international expansion, enterprise technology and product innovation. Apart from that, he will drive the company’s expansion into new markets and build local partnerships.

 

Thattil will drive the company's long-term strategic direction — leading new-market strategy, investor relations and fundraising, and global mergers and acquisitions (M&A), joint venture and consolidation opportunities.

 

 

Londhe’s elevation comes at a time when the company is seeking to deepen its presence internationally across full-stack platforms spanning the issuing and acquiring sides.

 

“Phi Commerce is stepping into a far larger opportunity – moving from a payments business built in India to a full-stack Acquiring and Issuing platform built for the world,” Londhe said in a statement.

 

The fintech firm plans to target banks, payment processors and large enterprises with the integrated stack.

 

“We've built strong payments capabilities and now we're taking a far broader platform to the world. I'll be driving the strategic, capital and partnership moves that will accelerate Phi's global ambitions as Executive Chairman while Rajesh's step into the CEO sharpens our focus on scale and execution,” Thattil said.

 

In July, Londhe had said that the company was sharpening its focus on deploying its payments stack among small and mid-sized banks as it expects technology services to account for a growing share of its revenue.

 

The firm is betting on deploying two major components of its stack — the acquiring and issuing stacks — at a time when these banks look to own corporate relationships completely.

 

This effort is expected to expand the revenue contribution from software-as-a-service (SaaS) products to 40 per cent over the next 18 months from the current share of 20 per cent. The rest of the top line comes from the company’s payment aggregation business.