Amazon puts Rs 450 cr in India digital payments arm ahead of festive season

USA’s Amazon has invested Rs 450 crore in its Indian digital payments business ahead of the festive season, 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 Inc Limited', according to regulatory documents sourced by business intelligence platform Tofler.

Amazon Pay got the capital infusion on September 17, by allotting 450 million equity shares of Rs 10 each.

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.

PhonePe has become the biggest UPI (unified payments interface) app with over 45 per cent monthly market share, beating rivals like Google Pay, Paytm and Amazon Pay.

But Amazon Pay is rapidly scaling up its presence in the India market as due to the coronavirus pandemic consumers have been heavily dependent on e-commerce to purchase everything from essential goods to holiday gifts. Amazon is eyeing to tap multiple sectors in the country ranging from insurance, wealth management to credit through Amazon Pay.