HomeTechnologyAmazon tops up India payments business with Rs 600 crore

Amazon tops up India payments business with Rs 600 crore

US ecommerce giant Amazon made a fresh capital infusion of Rs 600 crore (about $72 million) in Amazon Pay India, bolstering the Indian fintech arm’s efforts to intensify competition with Paytm, PhonePe and Google Pay.

The latest top up has swelled Amazon’s total investment into the Indian payments platform to Rs 950 crore so far this calendar year, showed regulatory filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). It invested Rs 350 crore in February, as per the filings.

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Amazon also invested nearly Rs 2,500 crore this year in Amazon Seller Services, which runs its ecommerce marketplace in India.

Amazon’s latest capital injection comes at a time when the domestic payments market is undergoing a churn marked by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) action against Paytm Payments Bank in January, which impacted several Paytm businesses including prepaid wallets and FASTags.

Amazon India did not respond to ET’s emailed queries.

Amazon Pay India competes with Paytm, PhonePe and Google Pay, among others in services such as bill payments, unified payments interface (UPI) payments and other offerings like wealth management, ticket booking and insurance premium payments.

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Amazon Pay India also has tie ups with Bookmyshow, Makemytrip, Redbus, IRCTC and Kuvera for services like movie and travel ticketing, and wealth management. This February, the fintech entity received a payment aggregator (PA) licence from RBI. The licence allows Amazon to strengthen its merchant payments business, a major opportunity for the company given its large online shopping business in India.

The PA licence was the second major regulatory nod that Amazon Pay India secured after getting a prepaid payments instrument (PPI), or wallet licence.

RBI data shows Amazon Pay India had 67.5 million prepaid wallets as of May 31. During May, Amazon Pay India’s wallets saw 623 million transactions worth over Rs 211 crore. However, the payments platform has lagged rivals such as PhonePe and Paytm in terms of wallet use, as well as Google Pay in UPI payments.

As per National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) data, Amazon Pay was India’s fifth largest UPI player by transaction volume in May, lagging PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm and Cred, at less than 1% market share.

In the fiscal year ended March 2023, Amazon Pay reported operational revenue of Rs 2,093 crore, almost flat compared to the previous year. However, net loss narrowed to Rs 1,499 crore from Rs 1,740 crore in the year prior. It has yet to file FY24 earnings.

Content Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

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