Paytm Payments Bank CEO Surinder Chawla resigns

Paytm Payments Bank managing director and chief executive officer Surinder Chawla resigned from his position on April 8, One 97 Communications, an associate entity of the bank, informed the stock exchanges today.

The development comes almost a month after Paytm Payments Bank stopped basic banking services under instructions from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The Noida-headquartered fintech has also informed the exchanges that Paytm has snapped all relations with PPBL and the board of the bank has been reconstituted with five independent directors along with an independent chairperson.

Chawla sent in his resignation citing personal reasons and to pursue ‘better career prospects’, the filing mentioned. His last working day will be June 26 of this year.

Chawla had joined the payment bank on January 9 last year. Prior to that, he was with RBL Bank as the head of branch banking. He has almost three decades of experience in the banking sector having worked at HDFC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and others.

PPBL is staring at an uncertain future, after the regulatory crackdown on the payment bank. RBI asked PPBL to stop offering all banking services from the middle of March of this year. Consumers have been allowed to use up whatever balance they had in those accounts, but no fresh addition of funds is permitted.

One 97 Communications, which owned a 49% stake in the bank, eventually moved most of its business relationships to other lenders. Currently, Paytm operates as a third party payment application on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), just like PhonePe and Google Pay. It works with Yes Bank, HDFC Bank, State Bank of India and Axis Bank for this service.