Amazon gets wallet licence from RBI

It will be known as Amazon Pay

As part of its initiative to further penetrate into the Indian market, Amazon on Wednesday received a licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to run its own wallet Amazon Pay.

The licence has been given to Amazon Online Distribution Services on March 22, 2017, and the company became one among the 84 companies authorised by the RBI to operate the payment wallet.

In a statement issued to DH, Amazon India Vice President (Payments) Sriram Jagannathan said the company is pleased to receive the Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPI) licence from the RBI.

“Our focus is providing customers a convenient and trusted cashless payments experience. We look forward to seeing a continuation of the low limit wallet dispensation with simplified know your customer (KYC) and authentication. This will allow us to help customers adopt digital payments at scale and thereby contribute towards making India a less cash economy,” said Jagannathan.

With the introduction of wallet, Amazon customers can do away with their two-factor authentication processes for each purchase that they make as per the national law.

Amazon has already invested in wallet licence company Qwikcilver, which uses the licence to operate gift cards for consumers, including those on Amazon.

Amazon India had launched Amazon Pay in India last December 2016, and it was seen as a rebranding of its gift cards business. Jagannathan said Amazon Pay helped customers fund their pre-paid balance using Internet banking and credit or debit card for smooth purchases and payments.

“With this, customers can go cashless and enjoy fast and easy checkouts, quicker refunds coupled with a secured shopping experience on Amazon.in. We will continue to look for ways to improve customer experience and increase digital payments leveraging our PPI licence,” he said.

Amazon India rival Flipkart launched, PhonePe, an app based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform recently. Indian payment ecosystem is also finding great strides by Paytm, especially after the launch of Bhim app by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

According to a recent study by the Boston Consulting Group, the digital payments industry in India will grow by 10 times to touch $500 billion by 2020 and contribute 15% of gross-domestic product (GDP).
DH News Service