Paytm Lending CEO gets additional role to lead offline payments vertical

The fintech company has elevated Bhavesh Gupta, CEO, Paytm Lending to take on leadership for the offline payments vertical in addition to his existing responsibilities

One97 Communications Limited, which owns the fintech firm Paytm, on Friday announced consolidatation of leadership of its offline payments business with lending, with an aim to increase penetration of credit to its 23 million merchants.

The company has elevated Bhavesh Gupta, CEO, Paytm Lending to take on leadershipfor the offline payments vertical in addition to his existing responsibilities. Bhavesh has led the company’s lending vertical, which has reached over $1 billion of annualised runrate of disbursals through the company’s platform. Before joining Paytm, Gupta had over 22 years of experience in the financial sector with major banks like IDFC Bank, ICICI Bank.

"Paytm’s phenomenal growth over the years is due to the strong contribution and hard work of its employees. After over a decade of association with Paytm, Renu Satti hasexpressed her desire to take a career break. Paytm is thankful for her years of expertise, dedication and contribution in the growth of Paytm and wishes her the best for her future endeavors.

"This is the only voluntary senior exit in the company in recent times, and the management team is greatly augmented by several recent additions in offline payments and financial services," the company said in a stock exchange filing.

Abhishek Arun, chief operating officer (COO) of Paytm Payments Bank has also quit recently. 

"After a fulfilling six years at Paytm ( across One97 & Paytm Payments Bank) I’ve made the difficult decision to leave the company and explore new opportunities," said Arun in a LinkedIn post a week ago. 

As a measure of reward for their performance, Paytm has recently promoted 25 colleagues to Senior Vice President and Vice President positions, taking the senior management team count to over 150. The company is further planning to hire over 30 senior leaders for product, technology and business roles, it said.

Paytm spokesperson said, “We are excited about the accelerated growth of credit access to merchants, which has led to the consolidation of our offline payments and credit businesses under Bhavesh’s leadership. We congratulate our colleagues on their promotions as a recognition of their contribution to Paytm’s growth. We also wish Renu all the best as she moves to the next phase of her journey.”

The company aims to grow its leadership in the offline payments space and propel the growth of credit to merchant partners with this consolidation.