Amazon Inc has added insurance and even gold to its menu of financial services in India, to enlarge its customer base and appeal more subscribers to its Prime loyalty programme in a battleground growth market. The impulse upgrades the competition as financial technology opponents and their deep-pocketed foreign backers will fight for profitability in a mainly cash-based economy where almost 190 million adults do not have or use bank accounts.
In 2016, They launched Amazon Pay digital wallet to boost online payments and in July 2020, it started offering auto insurance and gold investment products in August where both initiatives are first for Amazon. It has then introduced a credit card facility, signed up to a state-backed payments network and processes payments for flight and film tickets as well as the phone and other utility bills.
The company’s the United States, fin-tech hard work has been modest in comparison, hindered in part by a business reluctance to use various services offered by their biggest trade rival. But in India, nevertheless, where it has over 100 million registered users, Amazon is better located to use financial services to triumph subscribers to its annual $13 Prime plan which provides faster shipping, music and video streaming, tech executives stated. Mahendra Nerurkar, Head of Amazon Pay in India told that, to that end, the organisation seeks to make Amazon Pay the country’s favourite payment method of choice, which has signed up almost 4 million merchants.
India’s digital payment marketplace is ready to be more than double in value to $135 billion by 2023 from 2019, disclosed a study by professional services firm PwC and Indian lobby group ASSOCHAM.
It was the ban on high-value currency notes back in 2016 made the digital payment initiative grow in India, with Amazon combined in the sphere by Alphabet Inc’s Google, Walmart Inc’s PhonePe, and Paytm, supported by SoftBank Group Corporation.
Later on, potential participants have faced tougher regulatory inspection. Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp, which claims to have over 400 million users in India, has been waiting for approval to offer the payment services for over two years as regulators struggle with new data-localisation rules. Paytm, backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has got losses running into the hundreds of millions of dollars. PhonePe has stated that it hopes to turn profitable by 2022.
It’s not going to be simple to achieve success over the Indian fin-tech market told a person who rejected to be identified due to a business association with Amazon Inc. It’s very competitive and diverse, thus progress will be a slow process.
