Heena Sharma Blog

India’s online retail industry has been in turmoil since the government implemented stringent new rules to rein in major players like Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart . Amid the uproar, Vijay Shekhar Sharma -- whose two-year-old Paytm Mall is backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. -- is quietly devising ways to outstrip his rivals. The new regime forbids retailers from holding any business interest in online merchants on their websites, exclusive arrangements and deep discounts -- forcing Amazon and Flipkart to redraw contracts and rescue thousands of product listings that vanished overnight. The founder of Paytm Mall operator Paytm E-commerce Pvt, an affiliate of India’s largest digital payments provider, spoke in an interview this week about how his business stands to gain. The new rules require more stringent adherence by e-commerce marketplaces. For some of us who have been compliant all along, this gives us an opportunity to consolidate the business while rivals...

Paytm Payments Bank , which was asked to halt on-boarding of new customers six months ago, is learnt to have resumed the process for signing up new customers after receiving the go-ahead by the Reserve Bank of India . Company’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma on Tuesday morning tweeted asking users to open saving accounts at the payments bank. “India’s most sincere bank is here. Welcome 2019 with revolutionary banking of Paytm Payments Bank,” Sharma tweeted an advertisement which has been placed in several newspapers. Back in June, after an audit it had done, the RBI had found lapses in the KYC process employed by Paytm Payments Bank. It also raised concerns around the sharing of financial data of Indian users between One97 Communications, a majority foreign owned firm, and Paytm Payments Bank. The Central Bank had also raised concerns on the credentials of Renu Satti, the then chief executive officer at Paytm Payments Bank, for leading the banking arm. Read More Busi...