Team size: 25 (across all BharatPe group entities)

Career Biography

Sumeet is also a Non-Executive Director at Unity Small Finance Bank Limited, nominated by BharatPe. Notably, it is exceptionally rare for a General Counsel to serve on the board of a regulated banking institution, reflecting the deep trust placed in his judgment and governance expertise. He also served on the Board of BharatPe as an Executive Director from February 2023 to June 2025.

In his current role, Sumeet leads the legal, regulatory, compliance, and corporate affairs functions at BharatPe. Founded in 2018, BharatPe’s vision is to make financial inclusion a reality for millions of offline merchants across India. In addition, Sumeet serves on the Board of Zillion (formerly PAYBACK India) — one of the country’s largest multi-brand loyalty programs, with over 100 million members.

What are the most significant cases, projects and/or transactions that you and/or your legal team have recently been involved in?

Over the past year, Sumeet Singh has led BharatPe through three defining legal and strategic milestones that strengthened the company’s reputation, regulatory standing, and governance maturity.

First, he spearheaded the resolution of long-standing disputes with the company’s former founder and managing director — one of India’s most closely watched startup litigations. Managing multiple proceedings across diverse forums, he ensured that no adverse orders were passed against BharatPe and secured injunctions protecting its reputation. Through months of complex negotiations, Sumeet aligned investors, the Board and management on a comprehensive settlement that resulted in complete withdrawal of all claims and counterclaims. This resolution transformed BharatPe into a litigation-free company and set a new benchmark for ethical and strategic dispute resolution in India’s startup ecosystem.

Second, Sumeet successfully concluded BharatPe’s high-profile trade mark dispute with PhonePe concerning the “Pe” suffix. Balancing legal protection with business pragmatism, he negotiated a settlement involving mutual withdrawal of proceedings and reciprocal recognition of trademarks. This outcome preserved BharatPe’s brand identity, ended a multi-year legal standoff, and demonstrated that even high-stakes IP conflicts can be resolved through collaboration and commercial foresight.

Third, he secured one of BharatPe’s most critical regulatory wins — the approval of its Online Payment Aggregator (PA) License from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This came amid heightened scrutiny of the company’s ownership and governance structure. Sumeet led the regulatory engagement, addressed extensive RBI queries, and coordinated cross-functional responses involving internal and external stakeholders. His leadership ensured not only approval of the license, but also preservation of BharatPe’s eligibility for future licenses (Offline PA, PPI, etc.) and protection of its credibility with partners, lenders, and investors.

Through these milestones, Sumeet has positioned BharatPe as a legally resilient, governance-driven fintech. His work highlights the evolving role of modern General Counsel — not just as protectors of legal risk, but also as strategic architects of business continuity and regulatory trust.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Sumeet’s approach to crisis management is grounded in decisive leadership, strategic clarity, and calm execution. He believes that during periods of instability, what matters most is speed, structure, and steadiness — the ability to make quick yet thoughtful decisions, act proactively, and stabilise the organisation through clarity and confidence.

A defining example of this philosophy in action was BharatPe’s own crisis — one of the most high-profile governance challenges in India’s startup ecosystem, marked by internal control concerns, governance reviews, and unprecedented disputes between the company and its founder. The situation, which extended over nearly two and a half years, involved multiple litigations, regulatory attention, and intense media scrutiny.

Sumeet led the company through the entire crisis, serving as the central coordinator across all legal, regulatory, and governance fronts. He structured a disciplined legal strategy that ensured no adverse orders were passed against BharatPe, while also steering the company’s engagement with regulators, auditors, and investors with complete transparency.

During this period, he established a cross-functional crisis-response group spanning legal, finance, HR, and communications to ensure unified action and consistent messaging. This structure enabled agility in decision-making, timely risk escalation, and coordinated responses across all stakeholders — from regulators to business partners.

Sumeet also prioritised transparent engagement with the Board, shareholders, and auditors, ensuring that every major step was backed by informed consensus and foresight. His ability to maintain composure, provide clear direction, and uphold governance discipline allowed BharatPe to navigate through one of the most turbulent periods in its history. Under his leadership, BharatPe emerged stronger — fully compliant, litigation-free, and governance-aligned, setting a new standard for how startups can manage crises with integrity and resolve. He believes that crises ultimately test values as much as systems. His unwavering focus on integrity, decisive action, and clear communication has transformed uncertainty into a foundation for lasting organisational resilience.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?

Sumeet observes three key shifts reshaping the in-house legal landscape.

Firstly, regulation is becoming dynamic, not static. In fintech and digital financial services, regulatory frameworks — from digital lending to data privacy and AI governance — are evolving continuously. Compliance can no longer be an afterthought; it must be embedded into product design, data architecture, and operational logic. In-house legal teams must evolve into strategic policy translators, turning regulatory intent into actionable business processes.

Legal, technology, and risk functions are converging. As technology permeates every layer of business, issues once considered purely operational — such as cybersecurity and data localisation — now have significant legal and ethical dimensions. The General Counsel of tomorrow must be as fluent in data and technology as in law, offering advice that is both digitally informed and commercially relevant.

Ethics and strong governance frameworks are becoming defining differentiators. In a climate of public scrutiny and investor activism, governance culture has become a competitive advantage. Sumeet emphasises that GCs must act as guardians of culture, ensuring that transparency, fairness, and accountability are embedded in every decision-making layer. He believes that the next decade will belong to legal leaders who can balance regulatory foresight, digital fluency, and ethical conviction — ensuring innovation never outpaces integrity.

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?

Sumeet believes that in the fintech sector, the strength of an organisation lies in the self-sufficiency and agility of its in-house legal team. Over the years, BharatPe’s legal function has developed deep capabilities across corporate, regulatory, litigation, and compliance work — enabling it to manage most matters internally with speed and context. This allows for faster decisions, greater business alignment, and proactive risk management.

External counsel are therefore engaged strategically, not routinely — primarily when an independent opinion is required for sensitive matters that must be presented before auditors, regulators, or investors, or when complex areas demand specialist expertise.

When evaluating external partners, the focus is on business understanding and problem-solving ability, not abstract legal analysis. Firms that demonstrate clarity, responsiveness, and commercial realism are preferred over those that rely on purely technical arguments detached from operational realities.

Performance is assessed by how effectively the external team functions as an extension of BharatPe’s in-house team, sharing ownership and accountability. The most valued partners are those who combine legal precision with strategic foresight — helping the company stay compliant, credible, and future-ready.