Paytm elevates CFO Madhur Deora as president; to be responsible for company's consumer services business

Digital wallet company Paytm promoted its CFO and senior vice-president Madhur Deora to the post of president, said a media report. Following the elevation, Deora will be responsible for Paytm’s consumer services business besides overseeing multiple business lines at the company, said a report in The Economic Times. Deora, who had joined the digital payments company in 2016, led Paytm through its multiple financing rounds besides a series of acquisitions it completed, said the report. [caption id=“attachment_5076101” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The headquarters of Paytm digital payments firm in Noida. Reuters[/caption] On 15 August, Paytm had said it would invest Rs 750 crore to approximately double its monthly active user base on mobile to 250 million by March 2020. The company expects its Paytm Inbox service to accelerate the growth as it has garnered 27 million monthly active users and expects additional 60-70 million new customers to come on board by end of the current fiscal year. “We are already seeing 27 million monthly active users on Paytm Inbox. Now that we are upgrading it to the next level with innovative use of the content, we hope to get around 60 to 70 million new users of the app. Our target is to have 250 million monthly active users this year,” Deepak Abbot, senior vice-president, Paytm said in a statement. In May this year, Paytm had unearthed an over Rs 10 crore fraud following a probe into a large percentage of cashback earned by small merchants, and de-listed hundreds of sellers apart from sacking many employees, its head Vijay Shekhar Sharma had said. Regarding the feasibility of businesses providing freebies, Sharma said the cashback model is sustainable. “After Diwali, what my team saw was that there were some small sellers who were getting a large percentage of the cashback and we as a team asked our auditors to do a deeper audit,” Sharma told reporters here. The company, which reportedly engaged consultancy firm EY to conduct the audit, found out that some sellers were colluding with junior employees to earn the cashback, he added. — With PTI inputs