Online retail giant, Amazon India has received the final approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to launch its own digital wallet service. The online shopping portal which already has a wallet under the name Amazon Pay, but was restricted to the transaction on Amazon.
RBI has given approval for a Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) licence to Amazon India, which the e-commerce store applied nearly a year ago. With the licence in hand, Amazon can launch digital wallet services like one offered by FreeCharge, Paytm and MobiKwik.
Amazon Pay was launched last December to promote cashless transactions. You can top-up the Amazon Pay via normal payment methods like credit card, debit card and net banking. It offered quick check-out of orders on Amazon India, which otherwise need you to go through all the hassles of two-factor authentication processes. The company also used the wallet to offer cashback and quicker refunds. But until now all this was restricted to Amazon-based transactions.
With the license in hand, the e-commerce giant can streamline its wallet service and will not be restricted to Amazon-based transactions. Amazon plans to launch the digital wallet service under the same branding of ‘Amazon Pay’. You can use the wallet outside of Amazon, just like Paytm or FreeCharge. In addition, you can now withdraw money directly to your bank account.
“We are pleased to receive our PPI licence from the RBI. Our focus is providing customers a convenient and trusted cashless payments experience,” said Sriram Jagannathan, vice-president of payments at Amazon India. “RBI is in the process of finalising the guidelines for PPIs. We look forward to seeing a continuation of the low-limit wallet dispensation with simplified KYC (know-your-customer norms) and authentication. This will allow us to help customers adopt digital payments at scale and thereby contribute towards making India a less-cash economy,” he added.