According to persons who requested anonymity, Abhishek Arun, chief operating officer (COO) of Paytm Payments Bank; Renu Satti, COO, offline payments; and Abhishek Gupta, senior vice-president, and COO, loans, have submitted their papers.
Three senior executives left from Paytm in short succession, according to two people familiar with the case, adding to a string of departures of top management employees at the digital payments startup in recent years.
According to persons who requested anonymity, Abhishek Arun, chief operating officer (COO) of Paytm Payments Bank, Renu Satti, COO, offline payments, and Abhishek Gupta, senior vice-president and COO, loans, have all submitted their resignations.
Arun, who worked with Paytm for more than five years, announced his departure in a LinkedIn post. He was previously a senior vice-president at RBL Bank.
Satti, who began her career at Paytm as a manager in the human resources department, has overseen the company’s numerous operations during the course of her 15-year tenure. She was also the CEO of Paytm Payments Bank for about a year before being promoted to senior vice-president in charge of business and, subsequently, COO-offline payments earlier this year.
“Satti’s departure is really surprising,” one of the two sources mentioned above said. “However, she may be retained,” stated the source.
The exact reasons for Satti’s resignation could not be determined, however, the persons listed above stated that Satti and Bhavesh Gupta, CEO of Paytm Lending, had recently argued.
“Even if she stays with the company, she will not be involved in offline payments,” one of the sources added.
Abhishek Gupta, who joined Paytm last year as senior vice president and COO-lending, has also quit and is currently serving his notice period.
“I am still with Paytm,” Gupta stated when reached. Satti did not respond to an inquiry for comment.
Separately, the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led business promoted Abhishek Ranjan, who was appointed COO of Paytm Mall in June of last year, to lead Creditmate. Paytm acquired Creditmate, a collections platform that assists lenders in collecting overdue payments from debtors, in October of this year.
Until the time of publication, Paytm had not responded to Mint’s inquiries.
In the last two years, the Noida-based firm has seen multiple exits. Paytm’s president, Amit Nayyar, left the firm just a few months before its initial public offering in November. In 2019, the former Goldman Sachs executive was hired to create and lead the company’s financial services division.
At the same time, Shinjini Kumar, the former CEO of Paytm Payments Bank, joined the bank’s board of directors. Kumar joined Paytm Payments Bank as a director, according to corporate papers with the Registrar of Companies.
Kumar, who leads her fintech business Salt, joined Paytm Payments Bank as CEO in 2016 and left a year later for “personal reasons,” and Satti was named CEO soon after.
One 97 Communications Ltd, Paytm’s parent company, raised $2.5 billion in what was hailed as India’s largest-ever initial public offering (IPO). However, on their first day on the market, their shares fell by 27%. The stock is currently trading at a significant discount to its issue price of $2,150, closing at $1,344,75 on the NSE on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a Paytm executive stated separately that senior Paytm personnel had been required to sign agreements prohibiting them from selling their shares at this time. “The senior executives have a one-year lock-in and are not allowed to sell their stakes,” the executive explained. Paytm founder Sharma, interestingly, sold 402.65 crores worth of shares in an offer for sale during the public offering.
