Fintech firm Pine Labs has received approval from a Singapore court to shift its operations to India.

In a May 9 order, the Singapore court approved the fintech's firm request to merge its Singapore entity, Pine Labs Limited (PLS), with the Indian Pine Labs Private Limited (PLI) and transfer all its assets and properties.

Pine Labs operates as a merchant commerce platform offering point-of-sale (POS) services, enabling merchants to accept plastic cards and QR-based payments in their stores. The company provides a suite of products and services including buy now pay later (BNPL) options, invoice management, gifting solutions, and e-commerce enablement.

This comes a week after Tiger Global-backed Groww announced the completion of moving the domicile of its holding company from the US to India, joining the growing list of top fintech firms moving their bases back to home country amid favourable economic policies and expanding domestic market.

Last year, fintech decacorn PhonePe shifted its domicile from Singapore to India while Razorpay is also in the process of moving its parent entity from the US to India.

According to PLS’s regulatory filing in Singapore sourced by TheKredible, the transfer is expected to help Pine Labs achieve business synergies and economies of scale.

"The amalgamation is expected to achieve more cost saving and more focused operational efforts, rationalisation and standardisation of business processes by the way of consolidation of the group," it said.

The company is now awaiting a go-ahead from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The plea, which was listed first on March 1, 2024, has been adjourned till May 31.

The Peak XV Partners-backed merchant commerce and payments platform offers online and offline gateway (point of sales terminals) services to e-commerce and retail merchants besides gifting and credit.

The company managed to bring down its losses by 12.36% to INR 227 crore in FY23 from the previous year while total revenue stood at INR 1588 crore.

In 2022, Pine Labs had confidentially filed for a US initial public offering of its Singapore-based entity to raise about USD 500 million. However, it subsequently deferred the plans, citing weak market sentiments.

Supported by investors like Temasek and Peak XV Partners, Pine Labs raised USD 150 million from Alpha Wave in 2022, valuing the company at approximately USD 5 billion. While Pine Labs initially planned an overseas IPO, it was postponed due to volatile market conditions.

The startup’s reverse flipping plans are heating up amid widening losses. While its consolidated net loss more than doubled to INR 56.2 Crore in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23) from INR 22.6 Crore, its operating revenue also grew 37% to INR 1,280.5 Crore during the year under review from FY22’s INR 932.3 Crore.

The Indian government has been encouraging local startups to redomicile to India the process also known as 'reverse flip '- and set up their base in the IFSC GIFT City l and tap into the international market opportunities.

Article Sources – MoneyControl, TechCrunch