If you have been watching the Flipkart ads that speak about the EMI on debit cards being repeated ad nauseam on TV, wait for Amazon to launch a similar facility and this is being done through its own digital payment channel Amazon Pay. To be called Amazon Pay EMI, individual buyers of goods on the Amazon site can now opt for payment to be made in EMIs.
Amazon says this facility is being introduced to the millions of buyers on its site who do not own a credit card. There is the option to pay through debit cards as well. Capital Float, a startup based out of Bengaluru and engaged in the digital lending space will be the partner for Amazon in this EMI offering.
Amazon says it is looking at a figure of 70 million customers and the logic for arriving at this number is also being explained. They say there are around 100 million buyers from online stores in the country of which 20 million own credit cards and another 10 million rely on multiple sources to fund their online purchases when they need. The remaining 70 million don’t own credit cards. They may have debit cards but when it comes to buying items of slightly higher value, they could have liquidity constraints to pay up and conclude the purchase. Amazon is trying to bring as many out of these as it can, by making this EMI offer.
Google Pay has also made its plans clear earlier that it may offer loans to its customers in India. The moot question would be how the regulators will look at this scenario. In the case of Paytm, they were told to stop adding customers to their Paytm Payments Bank since the account holders were purchasers on Paytm Mall and the discounts and offers made there seemed to be not sitting well as far as the regulator was concerned. The same may not apply to Apple Pay or Google Pay but you never know with the Indian agencies.