Shares of One 97 Communications, Paytm's parent, recovered and jumped as much as 6 percent on Thursday after falling about two percent earlier today. The payments bank has received scheduled bank status from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which helped the stock to stage a recovery towards fag end of the trading session today.

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Being a scheduled payments bank, Paytm Payments Bank can now explore new business opportunities.

“The bank can participate in government and other large corporations issued Request for Proposals (RFP), primary auctions, fixed-rate and variable rate repos, and reverse repos, along with participation in marginal standing facility. The bank would now also be eligible to partner in government-run financial inclusion schemes," Paytm said in a statement.

Earlier today, sentiment for the stock had taken a beating as RBI's announcement to release a discussion paper on digital payment charges was seen weighing on Paytm.

At 10:54 am, One 97 Communications shares were trading down 1.6 percent at Rs 1,529.75 on BSE. While the stock was up 3.2 percent at Rs 1,603.2 as of 15:02 IST.

The RBI will soon release a discussion paper on digital payment charges to ensure they are both affordable to users, and economically remunerative to providers, governor Shaktikanta Das had said on Wednesday.

The discussion paper will cover all aspects related to charges involved in various channels of digital payments such as credit cards, debit cards, prepaid payment instruments (cards and wallets), UPI, etc. The paper will also seek feedback on issues related to convenience fees, surcharging, etc., and the measures required to make digital transactions affordable to users and economically remunerative to the providers.

This could be negative for fintechs like Paytm where major revenues come from payments and if wallet charges are regulated while cap on credit-card MDR could also impact spend based fee income, said ICICI Direct Research in a note to clients.

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Macquarie has also highlighted that the RBI's move is a big risk for fintech companies.

Any caps on payment take-rates will negatively impact the company's weak payment margin, Macquarie pointed out. The brokerage has an 'underperform' call on shares of Paytm.

Lowering digital payments cost could spur more transactions which are reportedly at around 14 crore per day, and of which over 50 percent are below Rs 200 per transaction.

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Earlier this month, Dolat Capital Market initiated coverage on Paytm shares with a 'buy' recommendation and a target price of Rs 2,500.

One 97 Communications is now positioned as a non-discretionary internet play, according to Dolat Capital Market.

The domestic brokerage also said that entry multiple for Paytm might appear steep, but it sees that multiple sustaining. Rather, the brokerage believes valuations have scope to expand as it attracts investor interest given high growth, inclusion led scalable opportunity it provides and that too at the intersection of two largest sectors - Finance and Technology.

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First Published:Dec 9, 2021 11:29 AM IST