Amazon wants to have a bigger play in the peer-to-peer digital transactions in the country. The Seattle-based e-commerce giant has enabled person-to-person (P2P) payments through UPI on Amazon Pay for Android customers. With the implementation, Amazon customers
will be able to make instant bank-to-bank transfers using UPI platforms via Amazon Pay app. Similar to other person-to-person payment platforms like Google Pay, Amazon Pay’s P2P payments is also built using the UPI platforms and customers will now be able to send or receive P2P payments by selecting a contact from their contact book.
will be able to make instant bank-to-bank transfers using UPI platforms via Amazon Pay app. Similar to other person-to-person payment platforms like Google Pay, Amazon Pay’s P2P payments is also built using the UPI platforms and customers will now be able to send or receive P2P payments by selecting a contact from their contact book.
They can also send or receive payments by entering UPI ID or Bank account number of the recipient. UPI has changed the way Indians do money transfers and with the popularity of services like Google Pay and PhonePe from Flipkart, Amazon wants a piece of the market as well. Amazon Pay will allow Amazon customers to “settle bills/expenses with friends, lend/return money to family, pay rents, pay for services like house-help, newspaper bills, milk subscription and more.” It can also be used to make payments directly from bank account to local stores nearby or to Amazon delivery associate at doorstep by scanning UPI QR codes using the Amazon app.
“Our goal is to make Amazon Pay the most trusted, convenient and rewarding way to pay for our customers. The customers trust their Amazon app and we continue to expand payment use cases directly on the app. With this launch, we have the largest selection of shopping and payment use cases on the Amazon Android app which provides added convenience and control to our customers,” said Vikas Bansal, Director – Amazon Pay.
Amazon says with the launch of P2P payments, customers will be able to send or request money instantly and directly from the Amazon Mshop app. Amazon Pay also allows customers to make repeat payments by displaying recent transactions, a feature also available on rival payment services. It also offers easy access to phone contact book to initiate payments and auto-detects if the contact is a registered Amazon Pay UPI customers to enable instant bank to bank transfer. If a contact is not registered for Amazon Pay UPI then the customer has option to pay using another BHIM-based UPI ID or bank account of the contact.
Once the contact is selected, the customer can input the amount and enter the UPI PIN to confirm payment. Amazon Pay UPI transactions are secured using multi factor authentication involving customer’s phone, SIM details and UPI PIN. “The money is transferred instantly and both customer and receiver are notified through SMS alerts and in-app notifications.”
As launch offer, Amazon Pay UPI customers will get up to Rs 120 cashback on sending money through UPI. Google Pay, which was rebranded from Tez, is one of the most widely used P2P payment services, and was the first to show the impact of a simple person to person payment network. Now, Amazon is tapping into it with Amazon Pay, which already serves as a digital wallet for lot of users, by turning it into P2P payment platform. Whether Amazon succeeds derailing the success of Google Pay in the coming months needs to be seen but it could become the default payment service for those who shop using Amazon frequently.
