Amazon Pay widens ambit of financial services

Amazon has widened its financial services offering in Amazon Pay to include motor insurance and digital gold as it takes on rivals such as Paytm, Google Pay, PhonePe and Freecharge.

In 2017, Amazon India had secured the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) approval to operate pre-paid payment instruments (PPI) or a mobile wallet in the country.

Earlier in December 2016, Amazon had launched its Pay Balance service. Similar to other mobile wallet services, the payment mechanism, however, was restricted to transactions made on its platform.

Since then it has enlarged its offering to not only enable individuals to add money to their account, recharge their mobile & DTH services, pay utility bills, make LPG cylinder payments, insurance premium and municipal tax among others. Customers can also book flight tickets, check EMI options on their debit and credit cards before making a purchase.