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Former Axis Bank senior leader, Mohit Jain, has joined Freecharge, an Axis Bank-owned payments startup, as its Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director.

This was announced by Jain on social networking site LinkedIn.

Jain replaces Siddharth Mehta, who served in the position for almost four years. Mehta quit Freecharge in February this year. According to the Registrar of Companies, Mehta, along with former Axis Bank executive Mohit Bedi, had started a venture named Gokiwi Tech in November last year.

Jain had worked with Axis Bank for over 16 years, before joining Freecharge.

In his last position, he was the head of Bharat Enterprises and Institutional Businesses for Axis Bank. According to his LinkedIn profile, he worked towards scaling up the corporate agri/MSME business in semi-urban and rural markets, as part of the larger Bharat Banking agenda. He was responsible for setting up new lines of business (such as co-lending), expanding geographical presence, and broadening the customer segment. He was also instrumental in the digital transformation of the group.

Developments at Freecharge 

In 2017, Axis Bank had accquired Snapdeal-owned mobile wallet Freecharge in a Rs 373-crore all-cash deal to strengthen its position in the payments space. 

As per reports, the move gave Axis Bank access to Freecharge’s 54 million customers, technology, and human resources and provided a big boost to its digital journey. 

According to the bank’s 2021 annual report, Freecharge operates as a technology service provider to Axis Bank and is developing digital products and APIs for the bank, which the bank can use to tie up with multiple platforms. The company can also launch these digital financial products for consumers on its own platform.

In November 2021, Freecharge had publicised the rollout of its neo-banking platform, in partnership with its parent bank, to offer investment choices such as fixed deposits, digital gold, mutual funds, recurring deposits, digital debit and credit cards, and buy now, pay later (BNPL) service.

The platform’s future roadmap also included personal lending and insurance. However, these are yet to pick up pace and attain scale. 

In FY22, Freecharge reported an operating revenue of Rs 287 crore, an increase of 23.2%, while profits dropped to Rs 23 crore from Rs 37 crore in FY21.

Freecharge was among the 57 firms whose application for the payment aggregator licence was returned by the Reserve Bank of India in February, and it was asked to re-apply within 120 days.