BENGALURU: A day after the Reserve Bank of India barred Paytm Payments Bank (PPB) from offering various services including accepting deposits in any customer account effective March 2024, Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said that they believe in partnership with the banks.
In a conference call on Thursday, Sharma said, "On behalf of Paytm, this is more of a speed bump, but we believe in the partnership of the banks and we will be able to see the same in the next few days."
The founder and CEO added, "This is an important moment for all of us, we have seen the update from RBI. The important thing is that we have been given directions and we are taking immediate steps to comply."
He also said that two years ago, an embargo was placed earlier on on-boarding new customers and that they had already started to work with banks, and will continue to decline and decrease dependency on PPB.
Going forward, with respect to operations, Paytm will work with large banks.
"In offline versions, where you see our All-in-one QR, powered by Paytm Payments Bank, now that QR will need to be changed to any other sponsored bank. This will be a large exercise, the new acquisition will immediately start in a week or two", said President and COO Bhavesh Gupta.
To a query on FASTag, he said there are a set of products that the Paytm app offers to users, some products like FASTag are already distributed by other banks and this will continue.
It is said that PPBL is taking immediate steps to comply with RBI directions, including working with the regulator to address their concerns as quickly as possible.
The company has been informed that this does not impact user deposits in their savings accounts, Wallets, FASTags, and NCMC accounts, where they can continue to use the existing balances.
In an exchange filing, Paytm said, "Depending on the nature of the resolution, the Company expects this action to have a worst-case impact of Rs. 300 to 500 crore on its annual EBITDA going forward. However, the company expects to continue on its trajectory to improve its profitability."