Paytm CEO Vijay Sharma talks about RBI's restriction, says 'we should have done better'

Nearly five months after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s action on Paytm, CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma on July 7 talked about the lessons learnt, emotional setbacks, and expectations from the union budget 2024.

Speaking at the seventh JITO Incubation and Innovation Foundation (JIIF), an annual innovation conclave in Delhi, on July 6, Sharma said, “We had responsibilities and we should have fulfilled them much better. We learnt our lesson.”

The RBI placed restrictions, citing non-compliance, on Paytm Payments Bank, a subsidiary company that comes under One97 Communications.

The top monetary authority stopped the company from accepting deposits, credit transactions or top-ups in any customer accounts, wallets, and FASTags, from March 15 onwards.

The move resulted in the halt of the payments bank's operations and a reduction of about 3,500 sales employees in the last quarter of the financial year 2023-24.

Reportedly, in June, the parent company of Paytm, One97 Communications had also laid off an undisclosed number of employees.

Sharma said that it was a lesson learnt about fulfilling responsibilities better. "At a professional level, I would say we should have done better, there are no secrets about it, we had responsibilities, we should have fulfilled much better," he said straightforwardly.

There are also allegations on Paytm that the company forced employees to unlawfully resign without severance pay, following which, employees filed complaints with the Ministry of Labor and Employment.

Meanwhile, Sharma also talked about his expectations from the government to support startups and small businesses, with special attention on enhancing the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform and changing the overall e-commerce policy in the country.