Paytm founder and chief executive officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma on Tuesday had met finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in wake of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) actions against his Paytm Payments Bank.
During the meeting, Sitharaman had made it clear to Sharma that it was a regulatory issue and the government cannot help the company with, Hindustan Times’ sister website Livemint reported.
Earlier on Tuesday, Sharma had met the officials of Reserve Bank of India as part of his fire-fighting efforts to douse the crisis faced by his company. According to a Moneycontrol report, the central bank refused to grant any concession to the Paytm Payments Bank including the migration of users’ accounts to other banks and extension of deadline after February 29.
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The company had sought an extension of the Feb. 29 deadline from the RBI and has also been seeking clarity from the central bank regarding the transfer of its licence for the wallets business and digital highway toll payment service FASTag.
A group of startup founders had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, finance minister Sitharaman and RBI governor Shaktikanta Das in wake of the central bank’s clampdown on the fintech startup.
“RBI’s current, seemingly punitive, regulations levied against Paytm Payments Bank could have far-reaching and detrimental consequences for the entire FinTech ecosystem. The recent directives also impact millions of users of Paytm Payments Bank and such harshness needs to be re-evaluated to safeguard the best interests of customers and merchants,” the letter stated.
With no relief in sight as of now, Paytm will have to transfer the accounts from Paytm Payments Bank to third party lenders for ensuring a smooth functioning of digital payments.
However, the shares of Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications rallied for the second straight day, with stock jumping by 10 per cent to trade at ₹496.
