The board of One 97 Communications Ltd, the parent company of mobile payments pioneer Paytm, has proposed revising the salary of its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, after an independent benchmarking exercise found his existing compensation to be ‘materially below' comparable roles.
Sharma's base remuneration remained unchanged since August 19, 2022, with no increments, after his reappointment as Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to the company.
The company's Annual General Meeting (AGM) notice also states that Sharma had "voluntarily requested to keep his remuneration unchanged".
Sharma took home a total of Rs 4.33 crore in remuneration in FY26, lower than the Rs 4.5 crore in FY25, including perquisites, and had also voluntarily forgone his 2.10 crore ESOPs in 2025, and currently does not hold any ESOPs in the company.
Sharma's proposed remuneration remains modest compared with some of its listed fintech peers.
For instance, Groww co-founder and chief Lalit Keshre took a combined payout of Rs 188 crore in FY25, including a one-time performance-linked incentive, while Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau received a total compensation of Rs 9.5 crore in FY25 and was allotted stock options worth Rs 243 crore, just days before the company's IPO in November 2025.
According to the AGM notice, Paytm appointed an "independent globally renowned third-party human-resource consulting firm" in June 2026 to benchmark Sharma's remuneration, including fixed pay, variable pay and ESOPs.
The firm found his existing remuneration to be “materially below” the median across all three comparator groups, including MDs and CEOs of new-age internet companies, financial services and technology companies from the BSE 100, and a broader BSE 100, prompting the NRC to recommend a revised remuneration structure.
Under the proposed structure, Sharma's remuneration will also include a variable component which will be performance-linked, with the NRC determining variable pay on achievement against pre-defined targets. For FY27, it will be tied to the percentage achievement of target PAT growth of the company. No fresh ESOPs have been proposed to Sharma as part of the revision.
Other changes proposed by the Paytm board include revising the remuneration framework for non-executive and independent directors following an independent benchmarking exercise, as well as changes to the employee stock option (ESOP) framework linking future vesting to performance.
The remuneration review comes after Paytm recorded its first full year of PAT in FY26 at Rs 552 crore. The company has sustained this trajectory in Q1 FY27, recording a PAT of Rs 220 crore, up 79 per cent year-on-year.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Essential Business Intelligence, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice, Daily Fuel, Gold and Silver Prices and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.
