Amazon gets RBI nod for e-wallet in India

Amazon India has received a payments wallet license from the Reserve Bank of India to operate a prepaid payment instrument (PPI), becoming the latest entrant into the country’s booming financial technology space. Amazon India has applied for this license almost a year ago. The license will help Amazon India to gain a pie of the India’s fast growing digital payments space.

Amazon had launched a Pay Balance service in December last year to boost cashless transactions. While Pay Balance has similar functionality as other mobile wallet services; however, it was restricted to transactions on Amazon. The license will help it operate beyond transactions on Amazon and equip it with tools to take on rivals such as Flipkart and Paytm.

Recently, there has been a flurry of acquisition in the Indian digital payments space led by major e-commerce startups. Flipkart has its own digital wallet, PhonePe, a UPI enabled app, which it acquired in April 2016 to strengthen its payments business. FreeCharge was acquired by Snapdeal to increase transaction volumes for Snapdeal. Shopclues also acquired Momoe Technologies Pvt. Ltd last year to venture into the payments business.

Amazon has joined the league of 84 companies which have licenses from RBI. It will be interesting to see the bigwigs fighting for dominance in the payments business space in the next few years.