Paytm, India’s leading fintech company, is facing a regulatory hurdle in its payment aggregator business. The company’s parent entity, One97 Communications Ltd (OCL), has not received the government’s approval for a downstream investment in its subsidiary, Paytm Payment Services Ltd (PPSL), which operates as a payment aggregator under the RBI guidelines.
Paytm OCL investment: The background story
According to a regulatory filing by Paytm on Monday, PPSL had applied for a licence with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in November 2020 to operate as a payment aggregator under the guidelines on Regulation of Payment Aggregators and Payment Gateways. However, in November 2022, RBI rejected PPSL’s application and asked the company to resubmit it, so as to comply with Press Note 3 under FDI rules.
Press Note 3, issued by the government in April 2020, made its prior approval mandatory for foreign investments in any sector from countries that share a land border with India to curb opportunistic takeovers of domestic firms following the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries which share land borders with India are China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar and Afghanistan.
Paytm has received significant investments from Chinese companies such as Alibaba Group and Ant Group. As per the latest shareholding pattern disclosed by Paytm, Antfin Netherlands Holding BV holds 29.71% stake in OCL, while Alibaba.com Singapore E-commerce Pvt Ltd holds 7.18% stake.
“As part of the Application, PPSL had also applied to the Government of India for approval of downstream investment made by the Company in PPSL, which is currently awaited. We will update the stock exchanges as and when approval is received. Meanwhile, PPSL continues to serve its existing online merchant partners,” Paytm said in the filing.
Paytm OCL investment: The impact on business
The banking regulator asked the firm in November 2022 to re-submit applications within 120 days after it gets government approval on investment made by OCL into PPSL as per FDI guidelines. The regulator asked PPSL to continue operations with the condition that no new merchants should be onboard. After the completion of 120 days, RBI again granted PPSL an extension but without removing the bar on new merchant onboarding.
The delay in getting the government’s nod for OCL’s investment in PPSL could affect Paytm’s payment aggregator business, which competes with players like PhonePe, Google Pay and Amazon Pay. According to a report by RedSeer Consulting, Paytm had a 9% market share in terms of UPI transactions volume in December 2023, behind PhonePe (44%), Google Pay (35%) and Amazon Pay (10%).
The future outlook
Paytm also said that there have been changes in the ownership structure of OCL, with the Paytm founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, now being the sole Significant Beneficial Owner. This was informed to the stock exchanges on September 03, 2023. Sharma had acquired a 10.3% stake in Antfin through his overseas entity Resilient Asset Management BV which made him the largest stakeholder in OCL with a 19.42% stake.
Paytm is expected to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for its proposed initial public offering (IPO) soon. The company is aiming to raise around $3 billion at a valuation of $25-30 billion. The IPO is likely to be one of the biggest public offerings in India’s history.
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