Amazon infuses Rs 350 crore into India payments business amid growing competition
US ecommerce giant Amazon has infused Rs 350 crore into
Amazon Pay India
, as the fintech arm looks to step up its game against leading payment companies such as PhonePe and Google Pay.
Amazon Pay India has allotted 3.5 crore equity shares to its parent entities Amazon Corporate Holdings Private Limited and Amazon.com through a rights issue, regulatory filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) showed.
ET has reached out to Amazon India seeking comments.
This investment follows a Rs 300 crore fundraising in November 2024 and a Rs 600 crore infusion in June 2024, reported by ET.
The move comes as rival Flipkart's fintech app, Super.money, is actively seeking fresh funding. On January 13, ET reported that Flipkart is in advanced talks to lead a $35-40 million funding round for Super.money, which could potentially include external investors for the first time.
Data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) shows that Amazon Pay was the eighth-largest Unified Payments Interface (UPI) player by transaction volume in March 2025, down from the sixth position a year earlier. It currently trails PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, Navi, Super.money, Axis Bank, and Cred.
According to the latest available NPCI data, PhonePe and Google Pay dominate the UPI space with a combined market share of nearly 85 per cent, while Amazon Pay holds a market share of approximately 0.6 per cent.
In February 2024, Amazon Pay received a payment aggregator (PA) licence from regulator Reserve Bank of India. The licence bolsters Amazon's merchant payments business, providing a major growth opportunity given its strong online shopping presence in India. The PA licence followed the company's earlier approval for a prepaid payments instrument (PPI) or wallet licence.
The company competes with other platforms to offer a variety of services, including bill payments,
UPI transactions
, and insurance premium payments.
It has also formed strategic partnerships with companies such as BookMyShow, MakeMyTrip, RedBus, IRCTC, and Kuvera, expanding its services to movie and travel ticketing and wealth management.
For the financial year ended March 2024, Amazon Pay India reported a 9.22 per cent increase in operating revenue to Rs 2,286 crore (from Rs 2,093 crore in FY23). The company also reduced its losses by 39 per cent, bringing them down to Rs 911 crore from Rs 1,499 crore the previous year.
In a significant development, last month, the Payments Council of India (PCI), an industry body representing digital payments companies, wrote to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) requesting the reintroduction of a
merchant discount rate
(MDR) on RuPay debit cards and UPI transactions, but only for large merchants.
In a previous conversation with ET, Vikas Bansal, CEO of Amazon Pay India, emphasised that implementing MDR for UPI transactions is crucial for smaller players to receive a fair share of the value they contribute to the payment ecosystem.
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