Amazon eyes Indian market, expands e-payments and financial services

Recently, according to foreign media reports, Amazon's digital payment division Amazon Pay is currently expanding its electronic payment, credit and financial services across India. The company is rapidly entering India's booming digital payment market, including second-tier and third-tier towns , and competing with Walmart's PhonePe, Alibaba-backed Paytm and Google Pay.

According to data, Amazon Pay UPI (Amazon Unified Payment Interface) recently added 50 million customers in India. Amazon Pay will offer daily rewards to all customers who use Amazon Pay UPI to shop, pay bills, pay online merchants, and send money to their contacts through the company's month-long festival promotion Great Indian Festival. Customers can use the Amazon app to pay at 20 million local stores by simply scanning any UPI QR (Quick Response) code. Last year, more than 75% of customers using Amazon UPI came from second- and third-tier cities in India.

Mahendra Neurkar, CEO and Vice President of Amazon Pay, said in an interview; “At Amazon Pay, we are working on a number of innovations, currently focusing on three areas. First, how to make the underlying payment rails more secure, flexible and fast. Second, provide customers with convenient digital payments by simplifying complex experiences such as real-time KYC (know your customer) or real-time credit checks. The third area where we plan to make major changes is to reach out to those who are accustomed to using cash and are not familiar with credit services.”

Neurkar said that currently about 85% of Indian residents still use cash as the main payment method, and only 2%-3% of residents have credit cards. Amazon is expanding its credit services through Amazon Pay Later. The company said that this is the largest product of its kind, which allows users to pay in the next month with EMI (equivalent to monthly installments) options. In the year since the launch of the product, Amazon Pay Later has 2 million customers registered, the platform has recorded more than 10 million transactions , and the payment success rate is 99.9%.

Amazon said it will continue to work to simplify and democratize digital payments in India .

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