Amazon has steadily increased its focus on Amazon Pay in India in the last few weeks. After reported investments of Rs 1,6o0 crore in the division, the e-commerce giant is likely to integrate UPI in Amazon Pay soon. Last week, Amazon India had said that payments would be one of its core business in going ahead. Now, a company spokesperson has confirmed to Medianama that Amazon is tracking UPI very closely. While the specific dates of a rollout is not known, Amazon is already checking the “platform stability”, and testing user experience.
Amazon rival Flipkart had enabled UPI payments through its payments app PhonePe earlier this year. Amazon’s Silicon Valley peer Uber too rolled out UPI a few months ago. Last month Google launched a made-for-India payments app Tez that is based on UPI. Even Paytm, which in itself is a mobile wallet, allows payments via UPI. Reports suggest that WhatsApp too is working on a UPI-integrated payments feature that could hit the market anytime. UPI accounts for the largest share of digital transactions in the country. In September, UPI transactions crossed the 30 million mark registering a 85 percent jump.
While Amazon may have begun UPI testing, it is left to be seen which Indian bank it partners with for the purpose. More than 50 public and private banks in the country support UPI payments. “Global tech companies see UPI as a simple, seamless payment option with a mobile focus… If these players put their weight behind UPI, it will definitely give a big push to UPI to reach 50 million to 100 million users in the next few years,” National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) had said in an earlier statement.
