MUMBAI: Paytm, mobile payment and commerce platform, has appointed Bhushan Patil as its new president. Patil will focus on building the company’s cross border commerce. Paytm’s Indian business aims to sell $2 billion worth of products in 2016 and is looking at growing its sellers to 5 lakh from 1.7 lakh currently. Paytm has a current user base of more than 12.5 crore, and is on a mission to bring about 50 crore Indians to the mainstream economy using mobile payment, commerce and soon-to-be launched payment banking services. Through the hiring, the company also aims at expanding outside India

Patil has served for over five years and held the position of head of wholesale business at Alibaba Holdings group (the Chinese online e-Commerce giant alibaba.com). As a major accomplishment Patil has incepted, led and launched B2B Trade-Trust products across 50 countries in Asia, Europe and America and was instrumental for developing new India plans for Alibaba.com’s B2B business.

“It is indeed an honour to be a part of the Paytm vision and strategy, both towards national cashless economy, and the plan to take Paytm overseas. I’m thrilled to come on board at one of the fastest scaling payments and commerce platforms in the country and look forward to a mutually successful tenure at Paytm,” said Patil.

Talking about the new appointment, Paytm CEO and founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said, “We want to offer Indian merchants a compelling commerce platform and Bhushan brings incredible experience of building cross border commerce. It will help Indian merchants to sell globally too. As Paytm continues to grow at an exponential pace, it is important for Paytm to expand its operations outside India for further development. We welcome him to be a part of Paytm’s go big, go global strategy”.