Rejig At Paytm: Bhavesh Gupta Elevated As Fintech Giant’s President, COO

Fintech giant Paytm has appointed Bhavesh Gupta as the new president and chief operating officer (COO) of the company. 

Gupta was elevated from the post of senior vice president, said the company in a regulatory filing with the bourses. In his new role, he will oversee key verticals such as lending, insurance, offline as well as online payments. 

He will also lead the consumer payments segment and has been entrusted with driving initiatives such as user growth, operations risk and compliance. Gupta will continue reporting to Paytm’s managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

“In his role as President and COO of the Company, Gupta will be responsible to lead verticals of Lending, Insurance, Payments – online and offline, Consumer payments and drive key initiatives including User Growth, Operations Risk, Fraud Risk and Compliance,” said the filings.

An alumni of Delhi University, Gupta completed his MBA from the Institute of Management Studies, Indore. Since then, he has worked with multiple financial institutions like ICICI Bank and IDFC Bank. He was also the founding member and CEO of Clix Capital (formerly GE Capital), before joining Paytm in 2020

Gupta has more than 25 years of experience under his belt and has built businesses in areas such as payments, technology and analytics platforms, retail loans, digital lending, among others. 

The new appointment comes days after key investor SoftBank offloaded more than 2.07% of its stake in Paytm’s parent entity, One 97 Communications, for a consideration of over $120 Mn. The stake sale came even as brokerages appear bullish about the fortunes of the fintech player. 

In its recent report, Citigroup maintained its ‘BUY’ rating for the Paytm stock and increased its price target (PT) to INR 1,144, an upside of more than 50% from current levels. Chiming in, Macquarie also gave a thumbs up to Paytm, citing loan distribution business as the key driver of its revenue growth and overall profitability. Macquarie maintained an ‘outperform’ rating on the stock with a price target of INR 800.

Other brokerages, such as Goldman Sachs, also maintained a ‘BUY’ rating on the stock, with a price target of 1,150. On the other hand, JM Financial, while maintaining a ‘BUY’ rating on Paytm, increased its PT to INR 855 from INR 750 previously. 

The spell of good news from brokerages comes at a time when the fintech major narrowed its net loss by 78% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 167.5 Cr in Q4 FY23. During the same quarter, its operating revenue shot up 51% YoY to INR 2,334.5 Cr. 

In the past one month, Paytm’s shares have risen by more than 12% from INR 645.6 on the BSE on April 17 to the current levels. In the past three months, Paytm stock has zoomed by nearly 15%. 

The fintech giant’s stock closed 1.49% higher at INR 723.35 on BSE on Tuesday (May 16).

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