Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma Quits Payments Bank Board
India’s top fintech company is in deep water after its founder stepped down from his position. One 97 communication-owned company is already facing numerous issues and now the resignation of its founder has put the company in more trouble. The parent company officially shared the news on Monday, stating that founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma has stepped down from the board of Paytm Payments Bank. During the exchange, the filing said, “The Company has been separately informed that Vijay Shekhar Sharma has also resigned from the Board of Paytm Payments Bank to enable this transition. PPBL has informed us that they will commence the process of appointing a new Chairman.”
His resignation came after the order of the Reserve Bank Of India against Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) to halt all financial services. Earlier the Central Bank of India ordered to stop the services from 29 Feb 2024 downwards which was later on extended to 15 March 2024. That means all the financial services are accepted into PPBL customer accounts till 15 March. Furthermore, the parent company of Paytm also declared that PPBL has reconstituted its board. It is worth noting that Vijay Shekhar Sharma was the part-time non-executive Chairman of PPBL.
Moreover, The Central Bank of India also asked the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to investigate a request from Paytm to become the 3rd party application provider and to facilitate 4-to-5 banks to act as service providers for it. India’s third-largest application, Paytm for UPI transactions, is going to be the partner of HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, Axis Bank, and State Bank of India for processing transactions through the famous unified payments interface (UPI). A further addition to this, one of the sources told the media outlet that “Talks to onboard banking partners are on, and Paytm wants to begin this process with large banks that have the technological bandwidth to handle large volumes seamlessly.”
Speaking about the resignation of Vijay Sharma from PPBL, One 97 Communications states Paytm’s founder has already resigned from his position as well as stepped down from the Board of PPBL to enable this transition. After the resignation of its founder, PPBL has started the process to vacant the seat of Chairman. Meanwhile, Srinivasan Sridhar, former chairman of Central Bank of India, Ashok Kumar Garg, former executive director of Bank of Baroda, retired IAS officer Debendranath Sarangi, and retired IAS Rajni Sekhri Sibal have become part of the board of independent directors of Paytm Payments Bank.
Apart from that, the PPBL board also has former Executive Director of Punjab & Sind Bank, Shri Arvind Kumar Jain as one of the Independent Directors and Surinder Chawla, CEO and MD at PPBL. Mr Chawla said regarding the joining of Arvind Kumar Jain, “We welcome the appointment of Shri Ashok Kumar Garg, Shri Srinivasan Sridhar, Smt Rajni Sekhri Sibal, and Shri Debendranath Sarang to our Board, marking a significant step forward in the journey of PPBL. Their distinguished expertise will be pivotal in guiding us toward enhancing our governance structures and operational standards, further solidifying our dedication to compliance and best practices.”
PPBL has the belief that the guidance of Shri Sridhar will help them to work greatly as he has an illustrious career in the financial and banking sector which will surely benefit them.
Also Read: Impact of RBI’s Order on Paytm Payments Bank: Damodaran’s Response