Thursday, 18 May 2017

Paytm payments bank launching next week, but not with Shinjini Kumar as CEO

Renu Satti

After more than a year's delay, online mobile wallet major Paytm would finally launch its payments bank on May 23. But in a crucial change, former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) executive and PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant Shinjini Kumar, who was chosen for the role of the payments bank chief executive officer (CEO), has stepped down and is in exit mode, while Renu Satti, vice-president, business, will take over. (A payments bank can carry out most banking operations but can't give out loans or issue credit cards.)

"We are in the process of launching Paytm Payments Bank on May 23. We recently received approval from RBI for Renu Satti to be the CEO," said a Paytm spokesperson.

Kumar told Business Standard that she stepped down as she was relocating back to Mumbai. Paytm Payments Bank headquarters would be in Noida. "I want to be in Mumbai. I tried to relocate to Delhi, but as things are evolving more, it was difficult to travel back and forth between Delhi and Mumbai. That is the reason I decided to step down," Kumar said.

She added that sending a fresh list of probable CEOs for the payments bank for approval, as well as some other conversations with RBI, caused a delay in final approval.

Satti started as manager, human resources, Paytm, nearly a decade back and has risen up the corporate ladder since. She has headed different teams for online marketplace and mobile wallet at the firm.

The payments bank will launch its services first in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and then expand to northeast.

In January, Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma told Business Standard that in the first phase the payments bank would have 100,000 banking correspondents. "In the first phase, we are targeting as many as 200 million wallets, current accounts and savings accounts. While normal banks target savings accounts and current accounts, we will target wallets as well," he had said.

In the last one and a half years, Paytm postponed the opening of the payments bank seven times. Sharma in January had even announced the launch of the bank. But it got delayed.

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