Vijay Shekhar Sharma to increase his Paytm stake

The founder and CEO of India’s largest digital payments startup, billionaire Vijay Shekhar Sharma, said he will aim to increase his stake as Paytm gets closer to profitability.

Mr. Sharma declared last week, “There is never a day when I would not buy more equity in Paytm. I am now Paytm’s single largest shareholder, and I think this is unquestionably a significant milestone.”

AntFin, which now controls 9.9% of the company, was displaced as the largest shareholder by Mr. Sharma, who now has 19.42% of the shares.

In India’s rapidly expanding digital payments business, Paytm faces competition from Walmart’s PhonePe and Alphabet’s Google’s payment systems.