10 mn users & counting, Amazon Pay Later lines up a broader credit play

Amazon Pay India CEO Vikas Bansal says the company will focus on expanding its smart wallet and digital credit offerings for consumers and small businesses.

Amazon Pay India is betting that a ‘smart wallet’, which pairs payments with credit, can set it apart in India’s crowded digital payments market. Even as the company’s market share by volume on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has shrunk over the past few years, Vikas Bansal, chief executive officer (CEO) of Amazon Pay India, in an in-person interview with Ajinkya Kawale in Mumbai, explains the strategy of ensuring continued adoption of its smart wallet and outlines its credit play with Amazon Pay Later, which has more than 10 million users. Edited excerpts:

 

Amazon Pay was among the top players on UPI earlier. Has there been a realignment in your UPI strategy since then? 

From Day One, we have focused on building Amazon Pay as a smart wallet that allows users to have all payment methods in one place. It then allows them to access credit and contextually surfaces the best payment option, whether users are shopping, paying a bill or doing anything else. We launched biometric payments last year, which got a lot of adoption, and have now announced tap and pay. What is not changing is the trust, the experience, and the simplicity of payments. Our strategy has been to continue to drive adoption of our wallet. It is not about saying, ‘I want to be X, Y, Z’. I really don’t do that as a strategy.

 

Since the acquisition of Axio last year, what plans do you have for small businesses, or was it only to serve consumer credit? 

Our Axio asset allows us to extend digital credit to both consumers and small businesses. We acquired it to solve the digital credit problem at scale for the country. We are very early. I think it’s going to take us some time, but it is something we will absolutely be doing for micro, small and medium enterprises.

 

What share of users who take credit from Amazon Pay are non-Amazon users? 

It is built for everyone. The opportunity is so large compared to what we have served so far; we just need to serve that well first. We now have more than 10 million users on Amazon Pay Later. But we have still barely scratched the surface. I don’t look at it and ask, ‘Is a user a long-time Amazon customer or a new customer?’ For me, it’s just about growing the 10 million number.

 

With Apple Pay coming to India soon, does it impact you in any way? 

We already have a wallet that is available on all online merchants. We are already working across offline and over UPI. There are going to be a lot of players and more competition, so it is good for customers.

 

You have announced a partnership with Kotak Mahindra Bank for a credit card for small business owners. Do you see more such partnerships ahead? 

Digital credit, in line with the Prime Minister’s vision, is the next frontier. If you want to be a developed country, which is Viksit Bharat by 2047, credit has to play a role in growing the digital economy. It has two dimensions: one for consumers and one for small business owners.

 

Today, 70 per cent of small businesses are sole proprietors on the Amazon Business platform. Small businesses face issues such as not having an efficient way to make their business purchases and get goods and services tax-compliant invoices so that they can get credit.

 

This partnership with Kotak Mahindra Bank solves this efficiently; it gives Business Prime members 5 per cent cashback. It solves for working capital. It offers them 48 days of interest-free working capital credit. We partnered Amazon Web Services to see how we can get credits for small businesses to digitise their operations, catalogues and other things.