As per a news report, Vijay Shekhar Sharma India’s leading e-wallet and recharge platform, Paytm, has sold 1% of his equity in One97 Communication to raise about Rs 325 crore for Paytm Payment bank.
One97 Communications is the company that runs Paytm. The shareholder’s name was not disclosed. Vijay had now 20.33% stake in One97 Communication. The transaction values One97 Communications at about $4.7 billion.
Earlier Vijay Shekhar Sharma has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India after the company decided to transfer the e-wallet business to the payments bank entity to start the payments bank but the final approval is awaited.
According to RBI rules, Sharma has to hold a 51% stake in the payments bank for which he has created a new entity-Paytm Payments Bank. Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba and its affiliate payments major Alipay together own 40.94% stake in One97 Communications.