‘Pay by Amazon’, Amazon’s own payment solution which now includes their own wallet, has been expanded to pay for 3rd party transactions as well. As per a recent push to increase its usage, Amazon India has tied up with 25 digital services and startups, for which Amazon users can now use Amazon Pay balance to complete the transactions.
Some of the startups with have agreed to become part of Amazon’s eco-system for digital payments include: Crocs, Sennheiser, Café Coffee Day. And this is not the end as Amazon India is also partnering with leading ecommerce platforms like Kartrocket and Zepo for integrating ‘Pay By Amazon’ into their platform. Users of their platforms can now offer Amazon-enable services like saved card details, and pre-paid balance checkouts.
As per reports coming in, Amazon India is in talks with startups specializing in online food aggregation, travel, ticketing and entertainment space more expansion of their payments solution.
Digital India Responsible For Amazon’s Payment Push?
It seems that the surge in digital payments witnessed in India after demonetization move has inspired Amazon to expand their payments services.
They have already hired IDFC Bank’s chief digital and data officer, Sriraman Jagannathan, to head their payments vertical which includes Amazon’s newly launched wallet and Pay by Amazon platform.
In February last year, they had acquired Emvantage as well, for the same reason.
Sriraman said, “Through our partnership with banks, we have reduced the friction, doing away with a two-factor authentication and increased the convenience for the customers transacting on mobile during bad network. We have built robust protocols to reduce failure points during transaction..”
After he came on-board, Amazon India has already inked partnership with SBI, HDFC, ICICI, Citibank and other leading banks.,
Right now, upper limit for transactions using Pay By Amazon balance is Rs 10,000.
And it seems that results are already coming in.
During recently concluded sale at Amazon, they reported 30X times increase in usage of Amazon Pay balance and 360% increase in new users of this payment platform, after they announced special 15-20% cashbacks, when transacted via Amazon pay balance.
Sriraman further said, “We want users to transact even nominal amounts as low as Rs 250 for self-use to experience the payment. It is also an important leg for the sale..”
Going by the looks of it, it seems Amazon India wants to convert ‘Pay by Amazon’ into something which is a mixture of Paytm and Paypal; something which is closed within an eco-system, but beneficial enough to inspire all ecommerce users to use it.
We will keep you updated as we receive more details on ‘Pay By Amazon’.