MAM
Home construction and home services company Housejoy appoints Arpan Biswas as VP marketing
MUMBAI: Housejoy (www.housejoy.in), India’s leading tech-driven Construction, Renovation, Interiors & Home Maintenance Company has announced the appointment of Arpan Biswas as their Vice President Marketing. In this role, he will be responsible for all marketing and project execution related activities and will aim to steer the business towards growth. Before this, he was the Chief Marketing Officer at Wonderchef Home Appliances.
Arpan is an experienced marketing professional with a demonstrated history of working across different marketing categories. Some of his key responsibilities at Housejoy will include developing and implementing a cohesive marketing plan to increase brand awareness, setting current and
long-term goals for internal teams, designing and reviewing the marketing budget, scalable project operations, and client and stakeholder management amongst others.
Arpan is adept at both traditional and digital marketing with 10 years of experience under his belt. He has held notable positions with companies such as Tata Motors, Britannia Industries Ltd, Piramal Realty, and the LODHA group. Arpan has an engineering degree from IIT Kharagpur and is an MBA from IIM Kozhikode.
Speaking about this, Housejoy founder & CEO Sanchit Gaurav said, “We are happy to have Arpan join our leadership team at Housejoy. He brings immense expertise in the area of marketing and strategy. A true marketing enthusiast, Arpan has a penchant for doing things differently, and with him on board we hope to achieve great success. We wish him all the best in his stint with Housejoy.”
Commenting on his appointment, Housejoy VP marketing Arpan Biswas said, “I am excited to come on board a team with a tech-driven startup like Housejoy, which is known for its end-to-end solutions in the domain of home construction. With my experience in marketing strategy and scaling up operations, among other things, I will work towards making the company a go-to brand in the times to come.”
Throughout his career trajectory, Arpan has gained experience in developing propositions, GTM strategy, campaigns, communications, pricing, media strategy and promotions based on competition mapping and micro-market analysis. He aims to leverage these to make Housejoy a brand to reckon with and strengthen its standing as a one-stop-shop for all construction-related needs.
Housejoy started in 2015 and their services begin right from the approval stage till the completion and handover of a house. Their core offerings include home construction, renovation, interior design. In addition to this, Housejoy also provides 360-degree maintenance services such as home cleaning, repairs, painting, and appliance installation. Housejoy offers clients a hassle-free experience of building a house and the entire process is completely managed by a qualified team of experts.
Housejoy has so far raised investment to the tune of $30.2 million from investors such as Amazon, Matrix Partners, Vertex Ventures, Qualcomm, and Ru-Net Technology Partners. The company is working towards becoming the largest tech-enabled platform for construction and renovation in India. They are currently doing 50+ projects a month with plans to scale up to 150+ projects in the next six months.
Brands
Reserve Bank of India cancels Paytm Payments Bank licence
Central bank cites compliance failures; curbs tighten as wind-up looms
MUMBAI: India’s banking watchdog delivered its sharpest blow yet to Paytm Payments Bank, cancelling its licence and effectively ending its ability to operate as a bank under the law.
The Reserve Bank of India said the entity can no longer conduct banking business under the Banking Regulation Act, citing concerns that its affairs were not being run in the interest of depositors or the public and that it had failed to meet licence conditions.
The move escalates a crackdown that has been building for months. The bank had already been barred from onboarding new customers since March 11, 2022, and later faced restrictions on deposits, credit and wallet top-ups. In January 2024, the central bank ordered it to stop accepting fresh deposits, pointing to persistent non-compliance, including lapses in customer due diligence, use of funds and technology systems.
Operationally, the bank is now on a tight leash. It may process withdrawals of existing deposits and facilitate loan referrals through banking correspondents, but it cannot take fresh deposits.
The central bank said it would apply to the high court to wind up the bank.
Paytm sought to ringfence the fallout. In a regulatory filing, it said the licence cancellation applies to Paytm Payments Bank Limited, a separate entity, and should not be attributed to One 97 Communications. It added that there is no exposure or material business arrangement with the bank and that it operates independently, without Paytm’s board or management involvement.
“As informed earlier, Paytm (One 97 Communications Limited) and its services, which have been operating without interruption, will continue to operate uninterrupted. These include the Paytm app, Paytm UPI, Paytm Gold and all other services offered by its subsidiaries and associated companies,” the company said.
The distinction may reassure users of the app ecosystem, but the regulator’s verdict is unequivocal. After years of warnings, caps and curbs, the payments bank experiment at Paytm is being shut down—decisively, and with little room left to manoeuvre.
