Ahead of festive sale, Amazon pumps Rs 700 cr into digital payments arm

Ahead of the festive season, Amazon has invested Rs 700 crore in its digital payments arm Amazon Pay India. The infusion would help the e-commerce giant to compete with rivals Walmart-owned PhonePe, Alibaba-backed Paytm, and Google's mobile payment service Google Pay.
 

Amazon Pay has received the infusion from Amazon Corporate Holdings Private Limited, Singapore and Amazon.com Inc Limited, Mauritius, according to the documents filed by Amazon, which were sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler. The infusion was done by allotting 700.1 million equity shares to the investors at a nominal price per share of Rs 10.
 

Amazon is eyeing to tap multiple sectors in the country ranging from insurance, wealth management to credit through its digital payments arm Amazon Pay. The Jeff Bezos-led firm is also making inroads in India's booming digital payments market.
 

This week Amazon partnered with ‘Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation’ (IRCTC), to provide its customers with the facility to book reserved train tickets on Amazon. With this launch, the e-commerce company's digital payments arm Amazon Pay adds another travel category, thereby offering its customers a one-stop-shop for booking flights, bus and train tickets.
 

In the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, experts say that digital payments have increased as people opt for an easy, convenient and safe contactless mode of payment.