Amazon invests Rs 225 cr in India digital payments arm to ramp up presence

US-based e-commerce giant Amazon has invested Rs 225 crore in its Indian digital payments business, buttressing its competition with Walmart-owned PhonePe, Alibaba-backed Paytm, and Google's mobile payment service Google Pay.

The funding for Amazon Pay came from Singapore-based Amazon Corporate Holdings Private Limited and Mauritius-based entity Amazon.com.incs Limited Company, according to regulatory documents sourced by business intelligence platform Tofler.

Amazon Pay had received another Rs 225 crore in March this year from the same entities. The fresh funding takes the total capital infusion in Amazon Pay to Rs 450 crore this year, at a time when the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has further increased the adoption of e-commerce and digital payments.

Last October, ahead of the festive season, Amazon had invested Rs 700 crore in Amazon Pay.

Digital payments in India will rise fivefold to reach $1 trillion by 2023, led by the growth in mobile payments, according to a report by financial services company Credit Suisse.

The competition in the digital payments space is heating up. In April this year, Amazon Pay, said it has empowered over 5 million neighbourhood stores and businesses with its digital payments infrastructure. These SMBs (small and medium businesses), most of whom earlier transacted only in cash, can now accept payments from their customers using Amazon Pay’s QR (quick response) code.