Paytm Payments Bank appoints former NPCI exec as MD & CEO

Paytm Payments Bank, a unit of Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led One97 Communications Ltd, has announced the appointment of Satish Kumar Gupta as its managing director and chief executive officer.

Gupta has 35 years of professional experience and has previously served as chief product officer at National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which is the umbrella body for digital payments in the country.  He was also a deputy general manager at public-sector lender State Bank of India (SBI).

“I’ve been fortunate to experience the disruption & growth that the Indian economy has witnessed in promoting digital payments,” Gupta said in z statement. “I look forward to leveraging my understanding of banking & payments at Paytm Payments Bank and aligning myself to its vision of bringing financial inclusion through digital payments.”

The appointment comes three months after Paytm said that Renu Satti had stepped down as the chief executive of Paytm Payments Bank to head the digital payment giant’s new retail segment as chief operating officer.

Paytm Payments Bank, which was launched in May last year, was under scrutiny recently after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directed it to temporarily stop registering new customers following an evaluation of its Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures and data security measures.

Paytm Payments Bank offers zero-balance accounts and doesn’t charge for transactions. The bank aims to build a business model that caters to 500 million underserved consumers in the country.

As per the regulations for such entities, Paytm Payments Bank can accept deposits up to Rs 1 lakh per customer in a savings or current account and offer other banking services like debit cards, online banking and mobile banking. Payments banks cannot offer financial products of their own and have to partner with other banks to do so.

Other payments banks in the country include Fino Payments Bank, Airtel Payments Bank and India Post Payments Bank, among others.

Paytm started off as a mobile recharge platform, but it has diversified to become a digital payments, payment bank and e-commerce company.

It operates these businesses through separate entities and has raised funding from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, China’s Alibaba and multi-stage investment firm SAIF Partners. Its most recent investment came from Warren Buffett-led multinational conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway in a deal that reportedly valued the group at around $10 billion.