Alibaba executive moves to Indian payment provider
(21 March 2016 – India) Paytm, an Indian online payment startup has hired the former head of Alibaba Group’s wholesale business.
Bhushan Patil joins Paytm as a vice president after serving five and a half years at the Chinese company, where he helped expand out the business.
Patil’s key focus will be similar to that as his role at Alibaba, expanding the payment service to other countries according to Vijay Shekhar Sharma, chief executive of Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications.
The hire follows a large investment by the Chinese e-commerce giant into One97 Communications. In 2015, Alibaba and its financial-services affiliate Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group invested over US$500 million (A$658 million) for a 40 percent stake in the parent company.
“In China, online payments for gas and electricity bill drove adoption of Alipay,” and helped direct business to Alibaba’s e-commerce sites, Patil said.
“Paytm is in a similar space to Alibaba, so I can leverage my China experience,” Patil said.
Paytm’s services span mobile payments and e-commerce, and soon will include banking.
Paytm says its e-commerce business is growing rapidly, and is on track to sell US$2 billion worth of goods in 2016. The company hopes to more-than double its e-commerce growth rate by the end of the year.
Alibaba is looking to expand its own presence in India, something Paytm hopes to facilitate.
“We’re part of the Alibaba family. We’ll continue to help them and they will continue to help us,” Paytm chief, Sharma said.
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