Unified Payments Interface (UPI) which came out post demonetization, allows instant peer-to-peer transactions (P2P) thanks to its real-time inter-bank settlement process and you can use your mobile phone and a virtual ID to do these transactions. Amazon Pay, the digital payments arm of e-commerce major Amazon, on Sunday announced the launch of peer-to-peer (P2P) payments on Amazon Pay. This move is a critical one in the run-up to launching its business-to-business (B2B) services for Kirana stores as expanding its offline transaction base.
Amazon’s UPI ambitions had earlier come to a halt when it failed to fulfill the data localization mandates from RBI. But now, since Amazon has adhered to all the data localization norms, it can start its p2p services soon. Amazon had first gone live on UPI with Axis Bank in February this year. But now with peer-to-peer payments, the company intends to offer the entire suite of payment products to its UPI users.
“We have a highly engaged set of consumers on the Amazon application. Since our payment products are embedded within the existing app, it can help the rapid scale of adoption,” said Vikas Bansal, director for Amazon Pay, India.
He further said, “Besides using Amazon Pay for online shopping, consumers are using it for bill payments, recharges, scan and pay for offline transactions as well. More than 80% of the transactions are originating from beyond the tier-one cities in India.”
“Now with bank transfers, we are bringing in more features. One can transfer through the virtual ID, through bank account details as well,” Bansal said. “We will store the recently-done transactions which will make it easier for the user to make recurring payments.”
“We will be improving and strengthening our bank and NPCI integrations further to aim for a 100% success rate,” he said.
The company is further planning to bundle the payments services with goods and services tax (GST) invoicing as well as lending services to create back-end payments and an inventory management mechanism for offline traders.