One97 Communications Ltd., parent company of payments aggregator Paytm expects a "worst case impact" of ₹300 crore to ₹500 crore on its annual Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) going forward after the Reserve Bank of India's latest directives on Paytm Payments Bank.
In a statement to the exchanges released in the early hours of Thursday, One97 Communications said that despite this hit, it will continue on its trajectory to improve its profitability.
For the December quarter, Paytm had reported an EBITDA of ₹219 crore, while its net loss had narrowed to ₹221.8 crore from ₹392.1 crore last year.
"Paytm Payments Bank is taking immediate steps to comply with RBI directions, including working with the regulator to address their concerns as quickly as possible," the statement said.
Here are some of the other clarifications issued by One97:
The company has also clarified that founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma has not taken any margin loans, or pledged any shares directly or indirectly owned by him.
"While OCL is allowed to have two board seats on the board of Paytm Payments Bank, as a part of the shareholder agreement, it exerts no influence on its operations other than a minority board member and a minority shareholder," it further said.
The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday had directed Paytm Payments Bank to stop deposits or credit transactions or top-ups in any customer account, prepaid instruments, wallets, FASTags, NCMC cards, etc after February 29, 2024, other than any interest, cashback, or refunds which may be credited anytime.
"We think revenue & profitability implications in the medium to long term could be significant & remain a key item to monitor. We have seen RBI take 15 months time to revoke its ban on digital business activities of the largest private sector bank. However, in this case since the first ban (in March 2022) for onboarding new customers (22 months have lapsed), RBI has conducted a comprehensive IT audit and continued to identify non-compliance, which in our view indicates that these lapses are quite material," brokerage firm Macquarie wrote in its note.
Shares of Paytm are still 65% below their IPO price of ₹2,150.
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