The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved the acquisition of a minority shareholding in Navi Limited, the fintech group led by Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal, by MIH Payments Holdings B.V., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Prosus N.V. The clearance, recorded in a CCI press release dated 30 October 2026, is a key regulatory step for Prosus’s proposed US$100 million investment in Navi.
What the CCI cleared
According to the regulator, the combination involves the acquisition of “certain shareholding” in Navi Limited by MIH Payments Holdings. The CCI noted that the acquirer does not carry on any business of its own beyond holding investments in portfolio companies with operations in India. It described Navi Limited as the holding company of the Navi Group, whose subsidiaries offer financial products through a single consumer-facing mobile app. A detailed order from the Commission is yet to follow.
Neither the CCI nor the two companies have disclosed the size of the stake or the valuation at which the deal is being done.
Navi’s first institutional round
Navi announced the Prosus investment on 19 August 2026, describing it as its first institutional capital raise. At the time, the company said the transaction was subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, including clearance from the CCI. Founded in 2018 by Sachin Bansal and Ankit Agarwal, Navi offers lending, insurance, mutual funds and UPI payments. Bansal, who stepped down as chief executive in February 2025, now serves as the group’s Founder and Executive Chairman.
Calling Prosus “one of the world’s most respected investors”, Bansal said his association with Naspers and the Prosus Group goes back more than a decade, and that Navi values the investor’s global perspective and experience in scaling technology businesses.
Payments and lending scale
According to the August announcement, Navi UPI retained its position as India’s fourth-largest UPI app during FY26, while the assets under management of its lending arm, Navi Finserv, crossed ₹13,000 crore. The group also said it reached consolidated profitability in the fourth quarter of FY26. Readers can revisit Navi Finserv’s Q3 revenue and profit performance for earlier context on the lending business.
Prosus, a global consumer internet group majority-owned by South Africa’s Naspers, already has a significant India fintech footprint through PayU, which earlier secured a final payment aggregator licence from RBI. It has also backed lenders such as Vastu Housing and Mintifi, as covered in our report on Prosus’s $180 million investment.
Why it matters for India’s fintech market
With competition clearance in hand, the deal moves closer to completion, although the CCI approval is not itself confirmation that the transaction has closed. A marquee global shareholder could strengthen Navi’s position as it weighs a return to the public markets. Inc42 has reported that Navi may refile draft IPO papers for a fresh issue of about ₹3,000 crore, which would place it within India’s crowded fintech IPO pipeline.
The approval also follows earlier CCI clearances for strategic stakes in Indian lenders, such as Bain Capital’s stake acquisition in Manappuram Finance, underlining continued global investor interest in India’s digital lending and payments sector.
Sources
- Competition Commission of India, Press Release No. 75/2026-27 (30 October 2026)
- Press Information Bureau (31 October 2026)
- The Economic Times / PTI (1 November 2026)
- Prosus, “Prosus proposes investment of US$100m in Navi” (19 August 2026)
- Inc42
Photo: Sachin Bansal, Founder and Executive Chairman, Navi Group. Credit: Shahanadg / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
