Amazon receives RBI approval to launch its own digital wallet

Amazon India is set to join the fast-emerging digital wallets business in India with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) approval to launch its own digital wallet in India.

According to a report in Mint, Amazon India applied for a Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) licence nearly a year ago. With the licence now in hand, it will be competing with Paytm, Freecharge, MobiKwik and the likes. Amazon’s wallet service will go beyond its Pay Balance service and not be restricted to transactions on Amazon only.

The digital wallet is a step up to its Pay Balance service that the company launched in December to boost digital transactions. However, it was restricted to only Amazon-related transactions.

Sriram Jagannathann, vice president of payments at Amazon India told Mint that Amazon India’s focus is to provide customers a convenient and trusted cashless payments experience. “RBI is in the process of finalizing the guidelines for PPIs. We look forward to seeing a continuation of the low-limit wallet dispensation with simplified KYC (know-your-customer norms) and authentication. This will allow us to help customers adopt digital payments at scale and thereby contribute towards making India a less-cash economy,” he said.
However, Amazon has not commented on what the wallet is likely to look like and what all services it will be providing.

This comes at a time when the government is aggressively pushing for a cashless economy. Most recently, the RBI also issues guidelines on PPI licences which indicated stricter norms for wallet players as it tries to push the UPI platform and secure digital transactions.

 “We hope the government and RBI would continue to encourage multiple ways to shift consumers from cash behaviour by recognising the value of digital wallets, used especially for making small value payments to large merchants like e-commerce, government, IRCTC, utility or insurance companies,” Jagannathan told Mint

Image: Amazon India Facebook page