Alibaba to hold 40% stake in Paytm's new e-commerce biz

New Delhi: Chinese e-commerce giaint Alibaba will hold 40 percent stake in Paytm's “newly spun off online marketplace business”, as per a newspaper report.

The Times of India reported that the shareholding is through “Alibaba.com Singapore and AliPay Singapore, while venture fund SAIF Partners and Paytm's founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma will own 30% and 20%, respectively.”

“India is an important emerging market with great potential and we are absolutely committed to developing it for the long term...While we are excited about addressing the market opportunity in India, we are not in a position to share any forward looking information with you at this moment,” Alibaba told the TOI.

Alibaba Group and its affiliate Ant Financial pumped in $680 million into Paytm's parent One97 Communications last year, taking its total shareholding to over 40 percent in the country's largest mobile wallet operator with close to 160 million customers.

Reserve Bank guidelines say foreign shareholding in payments banks would be as per the prevailing FDI policies for private sector banks, which currently stands at 74 percent.

Last month Paytm was granted licence by the Reserve Bank of India for Payments Bank and is likely to start operations this month.

With this launch, Paytm Payments Bank will be the second one to be set up in the country after Airtel Payments Bank launched its pilot bank in Rajasthan in November 2016.

The first branch is expected to come up in Noida, Uttar Pradesh in the month of February.