Exclusive: Amazon will launch a payment service in India
A well-placed source tells BetaNews that Amazon is planning to launch a payment service in India. The project by the world's largest e-commerce company is currently underway in a six-month beta program.
The program allows partner sellers in the country to integrate Amazon’s payment option into their respective websites, which will supposedly make it easier for many of them to do business.
The service works as a replacement for PayPal, which serves as an acquirer that offers a payment processing service for online vendors and for other commercial users.
Interestingly, PayPal is one of the few payment services that Amazon Payments, a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides means to process transactions online, doesn’t support yet. Amazon Payments was launched in 2007.
From what we have heard, it seems Amazon is test-driving its "Login and Pay with Amazon" program in India. The company launched it in the US last year. Through it, Amazon provides its partner merchants the ability to find new customers by inviting online shoppers and let them login and pay for products with their Amazon credentials.
While details are scarce at the moment, the upcoming service could also be a payment aggregator such as PayZippy. PayZippy, which was launched by Flipkart in 2013 and shut down last year, was a payment gateway to help shoppers buy things on the e-commerce portal through their debit and credit cards. Flipkart is the largest e-commerce portal in India and is the biggest competitor of Amazon India in the country.
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