Amazon india steps up insurance and credit biz, riding on its payments app

Business Standard Amazon India steps up insurance and credit biz, riding on its payments app

Amazon Pay has started making deep inroads in India's booming digital payments market and is competing aggressively with PhonePe, Paytm and Google Pay.

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, is eyeing to tap multiple sectors in the country ranging from insurance, wealth management to credit through its digital payments arm Amazon Pay. The Jeff Bezos-led firm is making inroads in India's booming digital payments market and competing with Walmart-owned PhonePe, Alibaba-backed Paytm, and Google's mobile payment service Google Pay. “We are making inroads into these spaces,” said Mahendra Nerurkar, CEO and MD for Amazon Pay India, during a fireside chat at Global Fintech Fest 2020 on Wednesday night. "Buying insurance is typically not an easy purchase. There's a lot of fine print. So, a lot of customer feedback is can you ‘Amazonify insurance’ and make it very simple. That problem statement really energizes us.”

The company has partnered with Acko General Insurance to offer insurance for two-wheelers as well as four-wheelers. It has also launched Covid-19 health insurance to all its sellers in the country. In April, Amazon Pay launched ‘Amazon Pay Later’, a service that extends a virtual line of credit to eligible customers. It partnered with digital lender Capital Float and The Karur Vysya Bank (KVB) for this.

“I think there are a lot of opportunities as we think about micro-insurance products. Whether you're buying a product on Amazon or a flight ticket or you're taking a cab, you will see a lot of innovation in all those spaces from us in the coming months,” said Nerurkar.

Nerurkar was of the view that doing just basic digital payments is an “old school business model.” One might see payment players reinventing themselves by offering a lot of value-added services to customers and the merchants. These include catering to very specific customer segments like neo-banks for farmers.