Paytm Payments Bank CEO Surinder Chawla resigns

Paytm Payments Bank managing director and chief executive officer Surinder Chawla has resigned from the company, One 97 Communications, an associate entity of the bank and holding company of Paytm, informed the stock exchanges on Tuesday.

The development comes almost a month after Paytm Payments Bank Ltd (PPBL) stopped basic banking services under the instructions from the Reserve Bank of India.

One 97 Communications has also informed the exchanges that all relations with PPBL have been snapped by Paytm, and that the board of the bank has been reconstituted with five independent directors along with an independent chairperson.

Chawla sent in his resignation on Monday, citing personal reasons and to pursue “better career prospects”, the filing mentioned. His last working day will be June 26.

Chawla had joined the payment bank on January 9 last year. Prior to that, he was with RBL Bank as the head of branch banking.

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While PPBL has lost its top executive, Paytm has lost further market share on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the most popular payment mechanism in the country.

According to data released by NPCI, Paytm reported 1.2 billion UPI payments in March, down slightly from 1.3 billion in February and 1.4 billion transactions in January.

Also read | Paytm’s woes trigger fresh worries on UPI market share duopoly

With its rivals PhonePe and Google Pay reporting month-on-month transaction growth, Paytm currently has less than 9% market share on UPI. PhonePe, with 6.5 billion transactions, had a share of 48% last month while Google Pay had 37% share with five billion transactions.

Currently, Paytm operates as a third-party payment application on UPI, working with Yes Bank, HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, and Axis Bank for this service.

One 97 Communications shares closed at Rs 404.3 apiece on Tuesday, down 1.95% on the BSE while the benchmark Sensex almost flat, down 0.08%.

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