EXCLUSIVE: Amazon considers moving Amazon Pay into a standalone app in India
Amazon is considering shifting its payments offerings in India into a standalone app, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch, as the e-commerce giant aims to boost usage of Amazon Pay in the country.
Amazon Pay is currently housed within the company’s primary e-commerce app in India, and lets users transfer money to individuals and merchants, pay bills, purchase insurance and travel tickets, invest in mutual funds and digital gold, and buy travel tickets.
The U.S. tech giant has been contemplating decoupling its payments service from the e-commerce app for about a year and intends to proceed with the plan in the coming months, two of the sources said.
Amazon has already reached out to the NPCI for approval, another person familiar with the matter said. The company has been told that it will likely have to issue fresh UPI IDs to users, sources familiar with the situation said, something Amazon sees as a thorny requirement.
Some executives at Amazon believe Amazon Pay is not receiving adequate attention on the e-commerce app, one source said, adding that a separate app with a singular focus could help the payments platform gain wider recognition in the country.
The sources requested anonymity as the discussions are confidential and ongoing. They cautioned that Amazon, grappling with many other challenges in India, may alter its plans and could still abandon the idea.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment, describing the news as speculation.
Amazon Pay ranks sixth among apps on Unified Payments Interface, a payments network that is the most popular way Indians transact online. In July, Amazon Pay processed about 72.4 million transactions, accounting for about 0.5% of all transactions on the network, according to official data. In comparison, Walmart’s PhonePe processed 6.9 billion transactions, while Google Pay handled 5.3 billion.
Amazon isn’t alone in weighing similar options in India, where China-style super app strategies haven’t seen much success. Its chief Indian rival, Flipkart, late last month consolidated its fintech offerings into one vertical, two years after separating from PhonePe.
