Amazon India to foray into mobile wallet space, gets RBI licence

Amazon India has secured a licence to operate pre-paid payment instrument (PPI) or mobile wallet in the country in its bid to compete with rivals Snapdeal and Paytm. The approval will help the US-based giant to cash in on the booming digital payments market in India.

"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 on Wednesday.

In December, Amazon had launched its Pay Balance service to cash in on the digital payments boom. Similar to other mobile wallet services, the payment mechanism, however, was restricted to transactions made on Amazon's platform.

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Amazon Pay runs on the PPI licence issued to gift card provider Qwikcilver, in which Amazon had invested in 2014. It can now launch a prepaid wallet service that will compete with mobile wallets of Paytm and Snapdeal (Freecharge) that are accepted at other merchants also.

"We look forward to seeing a continuation of the low limit wallet dispensation with simplified Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and authentication. This will allow us to help customers adopt digital payments at scale and thereby, contribute towards making India a less cash economy," Amazon India said.

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