Amazon India to expand its digital payments services business after getting RBI’s approval

Amazon India is looking to broaden the scope of its digital payments service after receiving the prepaid payment instrument (PPI) license from RBI. The PPI license allows the firm to launch its own digital wallet service, but the company is yet to decide if it will launch a new payments service altogether or expand the nature of its existing Pay Balance service in India.

Amit Agarwal, Amazon India’s Head, said that “All these areas are very early in their life cycle. Our most important priority for our payment investments has been to improve the experience of customers on Amazon. In that sense, this license allows us to provide a more cashless experience and a more convenient experience to our customers. This will allow us to move customers away from a cash-based or payment on delivery-based segment to a more prepaid digital segment. That’s our primary priority. Of course, we’ll try different experiments and see what happens”.

Amazon entered the domestic market in 2013, years after Flipkart (2007) and Snapdeal (2010) had setup their bases in the country. However, billions of dollars of investments and experience from its global business helped the firm grow significantly, and is now competing for leadership position with Flipkart, while the ailing Snapdeal is in talks with Flipkart only for an outright stake sale.