E-commerce firms’finance foray a quest for more user data

The quest to acquire the broadest possible user data is driving e-commerce and technology firms into strange waters. Early last month, one of the world’s largest technology companies — Apple — announced that it was launching a credit card in association with Goldman Sachs. A few months earlier, e-commerce giant Amazon had entered into a similar partnership with ICICI Bank in India to launch a co-branded credit. Now, reports say that Indian e-commerce players like Flipkart and Ola are likely to follow suit.

The diversification of consumer-focused internet platforms into financial services might seem strange, but experts and analysts like Ankur Pahwa of Ernst & Young say it is “fairly intuitive and logical”. Such associations give these companies access to one of the most valuable resources in modern milieu: data on customer spending behaviour.