Walmart plans to spin off PhonePe from Flipkart

New Delhi: Global retail major Walmart Inc is planning to demerge PhonePe, the payment system and digital wallet company of Flipkart, so that its ownership will be vested directly with the US retail giant, two people familiar with the transaction told ET.

The proposed move will pave the way for Walmart to get into India’s booming digital payment space directly.

This is currently dominated by Ant Financial and SoftBankbacked Paytm but competition is set to heat up with tech giants Google, Amazon and Facebook testing the market through their respective payment gateways—Google Pay, Amazon Pay and WhatsApp.

The proposed demerger will coincide with PhonePe’s ongoing fund raising plan of about a billion dollar through primary and secondary sale of shares.