In an effort to calm staff members amid Paytm's ongoing turmoil, founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma promised there wouldn't be any layoffs as the business continued to interact with RBI and seek partnerships with other banks.
"You are safe and secure because you are a member of the Paytm community. During a virtual town hall on Saturday with staff members of Paytm Payment Bank Ltd (PPBL), Sharma stated. He also added that many banks are helping them. Surinder Chawla, the CEO of PPBL, and Bhavesh Gupta, the company's president and COO, joined Sharma.
"We don't know everything - for example, exactly what went wrong. However, we will shortly work things out. During the nearly hour-long call with 800-900 employees, the entrepreneur stated, "We will get in touch with the RBI to see what can be done."
Three days prior to the meeting, the RBI had prohibited PPBL from providing nearly all significant banking services, including credit transactions, FASTag, and deposit taking.
Since then, the fintech major - which depends on PPBL for a number of its products and services - has been attempting to establish alliances with additional banks while juggling issues like user communication, merchant bank account transfers, and stock price stability, among other things.
Following a $2 billion sell-off in the stock, the stock exchanges have reduced the daily trading limitations for the digital payments company from 20% to 10%. An employee stated that in his first straight talk to the staff following the RBI directive on January 31, Sharma struck a "confident and reassuring tone."
"Ceasing the rumors of layoffs was a call to boost morale." The topics of bank tie-ups and job security dominated the conversation. A senior staffer who was on the call stated, "We were informed that many banks have approached, but no single name was taken," he added.
The chairman of SBI, one of the prospective bank candidates for collaboration, on Sunday pledged to assist the fintech clients in distress who are impacted by the order, but he declined to intervene directly to save the company. ICICI Bank has reportedly been mentioned as a competitor for the possible partnership. Sharma also informed staff members that "going forward, the company will focus on being extremely compliant."
Not afraid, but Worried
At Paytm, the past week has been extremely busy, especially for the customer support team, which has been underperforming due to a high volume of contacts.
"No one is afraid. We always anticipated comments from the RBI but not a complete prohibition. Teams have been making adjustments to conform to norms for the previous six months. As an example, we removed the Paytm app logo from the PPBL brand," a product team member stated. Paytm sent out its first employee communication on February 1st morning via group WhatsApp discussions, attaching the RBI circular.
"The original copy is this one. Nothing that appears in the media is accurate. Another staff member shared the information with Moneycontrol and stated, "More information will be sent tomorrow. The following day, the leaders of the corresponding teams met with their team members to go over specifics.
All of Friday, February 1st, was devoted to private meetings. Each team was instructed to gather all available data and information regarding users, accounts, and transactions as of right now and submit it to the heads, the speaker continued. Despite this, a lot of people are still unclear about what needs to be done next, and both the on-site staff and social media are working hard to stop the misinformation from spreading among the patrons.
In the meantime, an association representing physical retailers and dealers called the Confederation of All India dealers (CAIT) published a warning on Sunday advising them to move away from Paytm and towards other payment apps.
"The CAIT has advised customers to take proactive steps to safeguard their funds and guarantee ongoing financial transactions in response to certain restrictions enforced by the RBI. RBI limitations on Paytm could cause financial disruptions for a large number of small traders, vendors, Hawkers, and women who use the app to make payments,” the CAIT stated on February 4.
