Bengaluru, Dec 23 (IANS): E-commerce giant Flipkart on Friday announced the full ownership separation of digital payments platform PhonePe.

Following the partial separation announced in December 2020, Flipkart and PhonePe are now established as separate entities, the company said in a statement.

The PhonePe Group was acquired by the Flipkart Group in 2016.

"We are confident PhonePe will continue to scale and achieve its vision of providing financial inclusion to millions of Indians," said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group.

As part of this transaction, existing Flipkart Singapore and PhonePe Singapore shareholders, led by Walmart, have purchased shares directly in PhonePe India.

This completes the move to make PhonePe a fully India domiciled company, a process that started earlier this year, said the company.

Walmart will remain the majority shareholder of both business groups.

With over 400 million registered users, more than one in four Indians are now using PhonePe.

Since its launch, PhonePe has digitised more than 35 million offline merchants spread across tier 2, 3, 4 cities and beyond.

"We are looking forward to the next phase of our growth as we invest in new businesses -- like insurance, wealth management and lending, while also enabling the next wave of growth for UPI payments in India," said Sameer Nigam, Founder and CEO at PhonePe.