Paytm parent’s staff costs rise 21% in a challenging year

One 97 Communications (OCL), which runs digital payments platform Paytm, saw its overall employee costs grow 21% to Rs 4,589 crore in 202-24 from Rs 3,788 crore in FY23, amid regulatory clampdown in its associate entity Paytm Payments Bank and slowdown in its overall business.

OCL increased the remuneration of its executive director and group chief financial officer Madhur Deora by 15% , almost double of the median hike of the entire organisation, according to its FY24 annual report.

This hike was approved by a board resolution undertaken by the company in September 2023 and the revised salary was approved till financial year 2026. Responding to ET's queries a Paytm spokesperson said: "For eligible employees, the average percentage increase in remuneration in FY 24 is 14% and the median increase in remuneration is 7%."


The hike took Deora’s remuneration to Rs 3.6 crore in 2023-24, while his overall remuneration without employee stock options (Esops) stood at Rs 4.2 crore.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive of OCL, did not take any hike last fiscal, keeping his overall remuneration steady at Rs 4.4 crore. The company said that Sharma's salary had been fixed for three years in FY 2022.

Deora’s salary hike – on top of a 9% jump in his remuneration in FY23 – came in a year when the company started a mission to control its bloated employee costs. ET reported in December 2023 that Paytm had let go of more than 1,000 employees. The company has set a target of reducing its overall employee expenses by Rs 400-500 crore in the current fiscal.

Commenting on the jump in employee costs the company spokesperson said that Paytm strengthened its merchant sales and financial services teams to drive penetration of its high margin use cases such as merchant subscriptions and loan distribution.

"We also invested in our product and technology team to help scale our platform to support the next leg of users and transactions," the spokesperson added.

Since the start of the current financial year, given the regulatory actions on the banking business and the overall churn in the organisation, a large number of senior executives have exited OCL. Paytm’s chief business officers Bipin Kaul and Ajay Gupta resigned, following the exit of Bhavesh Gupta, chief operating officer of the company. Surinder Chawla, chief executive of Paytm Payments Bank, resigned in April.

On August 21 this year, Paytm adopted a resolution that its non-executive directors on the board will not be paid a remuneration higher than Rs 48 lakh per annum, out of which the fixed component will be Rs 20 lakh.

In the last fiscal, the company’ share price slumped from around Rs 600 in March 2023 to around Rs 400 in March 2024. Since then, the share price has appreciated to Rs 731.

To get its business back on track, Paytm is focusing on QR code payments through the sound box. It recently launched the tap and pay functionality on its sound boxes typically used by small merchants to accept UPI payments via QR codes.

The company on August 28 reported to the stock exchanges that it has received the clearance for the foreign direct investment into its subsidiary entity Paytm Payment Services and will be reapplying for the payment aggregator licence to the Reserve Bank of India.

In the June quarter of the current financial year, Paytm reported operational revenue of Rs 1,501 crore and a net loss of Rs 840 crore.

Deora, previously a senior executive at Citibank, has been with Paytm since 2016, heading the finance functions. He was elevated to the group CFO position in October 2020.