Amazon India gets approval from RBI for mobile wallet

The Dollar Business Bureau

E-commerce player Amazon India has got a licence for operating mobile wallet or pre-paid payment instrument (PPI) in India as it is trying to compete against its rivals in e-commerce space, Paytm and Snapdeal, more aggressively.

The approval for mobile wallet will help the online marketplace to leverage the booming market for digital payments in the country.

“We are pleased to receive our PPI license from the RBI (Reserve Bank of India). Our focus is providing customers a convenient and trusted cashless payments experience,” Amazon India said in a statement.

In December last year, the US-based e-commerce major had launched the Pay Balance service for cashing in on the boom in digital payments space. Like the services of other mobile wallets, the payment mechanism of Amazon’s Pay was only for the transactions on its own platform.

The mobile wallet of Amazon runs on PPI licence provided to Qwikcilver, in which the company had invested in 2014. The e-commerce company can now start a prepaid mobile wallet service which will compete with the rivals’ mobile wallets of Freecharge (Snapdeal) and Paytm that are acceptable at other merchants too.

“We are looking forward to see a continuance of dispensation of low limit wallet with simplified process of KYC (Know-Your-Customer) and authentication. It will also allow us in helping our customers in adopting digital payments mode at scale, thus, contribute in making India a less cash based economy,” the company said.