Amazon is reportedly preparing to launch a standalone app for Amazon Pay. According to a report by TechCrunch, the company’s motive behind this is to increase its user base as well as provide easy access to its payment services to a large number of users.
Currently, Amazon Pay services are integrated into the main shopping app. This feature allows users to perform a variety of activities related to money transfers as well as investments. Users can send or receive money and book travel as well as buy insurance and invest in assets such as digital gold and mutual funds.
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Amazon may launch new standalone Amazon Pay app
According to a TechCrunch report, Amazon has filed a petition with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to make this happen. The report also adds that some executives working at Amazon have noted that Amazon Pay has failed to attract the desired number of users when integrated into the shopping app. It is believed that they are in favor of the idea of a separate payments app to gain more traction amid India’s competitive digital payments landscape.
Amazon Pay’s Place in India’s Digital Payments Landscape
According to CNBC, Amazon Pay is reportedly ranked sixth in popularity among all payment apps registered on India’s most-used payment network, Unified Payment Interface. Amazon Pay reportedly handled 72.4 million transactions, which is about 0.5 percent of the total money transfers made using UPI. Other top payment apps include Phone Pe at the top with 6.9 billion transactions and Google Pay at 5.3 billion transactions.
While Amazon is serious about developing and releasing another Amazon Pay app, there is also a chance that the company will scrap the plan altogether, TechCrunch reports.
In July, Vikas Bansal, head of Amazon Pay India, told Mint that the company wanted to launch a new payment method where customers can still pay offline like at physical stores and shops.
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“We see an opportunity to penetrate deeper into offline (physical) stores, multiple new payment methods and continue to invest in safety and security to control and reduce fraud. We continue to invest in UPI,” Bansal told Mint.
