Renu Satti resigns from Payments Bank to lead 'New Retail' initiative for Paytm

After serving about 14 months as a CEO of  Paytm Payments Bank, Renu Satti has resigned from the post to lead a new role as the chief operating officer of an upcoming retail arm of one97 communications.

Satti will now head the initiative called ‘New Retail’, which essentially will help consumers discover groceries, pharmacies, and shops for instant deliveries.

This is the new business line for the Alibaba-backed company. It's eyeing to have strong hold in unorganised retail segment (O2O) as well as drive its payment business through the new initiative.

As of now Paytm hasn’t announced any name for the CEO role (payments bank) and there is no any update whether the company’s founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma will act as interim CEO of the payments bank unit, reports BloombergQuint.

Satti’s redesignation of the new role as COO of the upcoming retail business can be seen on her LinkedIn profile, where it is mentioned that she has been heading the position since July, this year.

Satti, who joined One97 in 2006 replaced Shinjini Kumar as MD and CEO (PPB) in May last year. She has been a  part of the core team and played important role in company’s launch of e-commerce vertical and in creating a merchant base.

This is the second instance when the position of Paytm payments Bank's CEO goes vacant. Its previous head Shinjini Kumar left his position just before the formal launch of it.

Paytm claims to have already partnered with a large network of local shops that accept payments through Paytm. This will help the company to extend its ‘New Retail’ service.

According to VSS,  the local ordering is expected to become one-third of Paytm orders and GMV by 2020.

The new initiative 'New Retail' by Paytm might have drawn some inspiration from its major investors Alibaba. The Jack Ma-led firm had coined the term 'New Retail' as an integration of online, offline, logistics and data across a single value chain in 2016.

Meanwhile, Paytm Mall is in talks with US-based investors as well as its existing shareholder - SoftBank to raise around $300-500 million to push its online-to-offline (O2O) retail business, claims a separate report.