Paytm Payments Bank Gets RBI Nod To Appoint Surinder Chawla As New CEO

Paytm Payments Bank has reportedly secured the approval of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to appoint Surinder Chawla as its new CEO.

Currently, Chawla is serving as the head of branch banking at RBL Bank.

According to a report by Mint, Chawla’s appointment as Paytm Payment Bank’s CEO has been on the cards for a while and he has been going through a role transition at RBL Bank for a long time as well.

Before RBL Bank, Chawla worked at HDFC Bank for more than 11 years, working as the head of the retail liabilities product group, with short-term stints at Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank as well, according to his LinkedIn profile.

It is prudent to mention that Paytm Payment Bank’s CEO Satish Kumar Gupta retired in October 2022. Since then, Deependra Singh Rathore has been serving as the interim CEO and has been with Paytm since January 2016, per his LinkedIn profile. Rathore last served as a senior vice president of Paytm Payments Bank.

Paytm Payments Bank has been under regulatory scrutiny since March 2022, when the RBI issued an order barring it from onboarding new users, subject to an audit of the payments bank’s accounts.

“Onboarding of new customers by Paytm Payments Bank Ltd will be subject to specific permission to be granted by RBI after reviewing the report of the IT auditors,” the apex bank said in a statement at the time.

The RBI alleged that Paytm Payments Bank was not verifying new customers properly as directed by the central bank’s know-your-customer (KYC) norms.

While media reports from the time alleged that the payments bank was sharing servers with certain Chinese entities which held an indirect stake in the company, the bank denied the same, calling the reports ‘sensationalist’.

To be sure, Paytm Payments Bank is a joint venture between Paytm and its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and the latter holds a 51% stake in the company. China-based Alibaba Group Holding and its affiliate, Jack Ma’s Ant Group hold shares in Paytm.

The payments bank is also a scheduled bank under RBI guidelines, having been included in the second schedule of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, in December 2021. The bank claims to have more than 300 Mn wallets and 60 Mn bank accounts.

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