Ahead of its annual flagship festive sale, e-commerce major Amazon has infused Rs 590 crore into its payments arm–Amazon Pay.
This is the third round of investment for the payment wing in 2018. Previously, it received Rs 230 crore and Rs 195 crore in July and March this year.
According to RoC filing sourced by paper.vc, the fresh funding came from the Singapore-based Amazon Corporate Holdings and Amazon.com.incs. Amazon Pay got the capital infusion under the “Rights Issue ” by offering 59 crore equity shares, reports the Hindu.
To counter its rival e-commerce players’ payments arm such as Flipkart’s PhonePe and Paytm, the Seattle-based company has been investing in its payments firm and recently acquired Tapzo to ramp up its fintech vertical. Of late, the core team at Tapzo has been building proprietary software for banking bodies.
Besides, it is also eyeing UPI railroad to enter consumer digital payments ecosystem, however, the RBI strict guidelines over data localisation has forced it to delay the launch.
Not only payments, but Amazon is also looking to tap life, health, and general insurance around its payments arm. According to sources, Amazon is likely to sell third-party insurance products along with its investee Acko Insurance.
As of now, a small fraction of online users prefer Amazon Pay for bill payments, mobile recharges and for booking movie tickets and online food ordering.
Recently, it launched EMI through Amazon Pay to offer credit line up to Rs 60,000 to customers. The company has tied up with Capital Float as its lending partner that will initiate and process the Amazon Pay EMI credits.
