Paytm’s switch to compliance-first mode seen too little too late

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

compliance team to attend product meetings to ensuring that every update or new product launch went through the rigours of the regulatory rules and restrictions, over the last one year or so, Paytm implemented a host of internal changes to toe the regulatory line, said executives at the digital payments company.

At the same time, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the company’s founder, made it a priority for his team to focus on launching every industry update from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) or the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on priority, they said.

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However, with its payment bank unit already under the scrutiny of the central bank for almost two years, perhaps the efforts were a case of too little too late. While announcing the business restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank on January 31, the RBI called out persistent non-compliance as one of the issues with the bank. Industry insiders said if Paytm had implemented the strict compliance mandates earlier, perhaps it could have avoided such an action.

After the payments bank was put under an embargo back in March 2022, the Paytm leadership did make compliance a focus area, according to multiple people in the know. It also wanted to show the sector regulator that Paytm was ready to support all