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MUMBAI – India’s Paytm Payments Bank, which facilitates transactions on mobile commerce platform Paytm, hopes the central bank will allow new customers to resume operations in the next few months, a top executive told Reuters.
In March, the Reserve Bank of India ordered a comprehensive audit of the company’s IT systems, without mentioning “material” supervisory concerns, without elaborating further and preventing it from accepting new customers.
The bank is working with the RBI to complete the IT audit and address the regulator’s concerns.
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“The process is ongoing and we think it should take three to five months from where we are now,” Madhur Deora, Paytm’s group chief financial officer, told Reuters on Sunday.
The central bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Paytm denied a Bloomberg news report in March that the RBI was sharing information with its servers with China-based firms that indirectly owned the firm’s partnership.
Paytm is supported by Alibaba Group Holding of China and its affiliate Ant Group.
One97 Communications Limited, a parent of fintech firm Paytm, reported a fourth-quarter loss on Friday due to higher payroll processing, marketing and staff costs.
Deora said the company was on track to make a profit by September 2023.
“We are seeing good growth in high margin business and as a result we are seeing improvement in contribution margins.”
“Our indirect spending will not grow as fast as last year because we do not expect to make any significant investments in new business or staff costs this year as we have already made last year,” he added.
Paytm made its stock market debut in November last year in one of the largest initial public offerings in the country, but shares have plunged 70% since then. (Reporting by Nupur Anand; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)