Amazon Pay may get a separate app soon: Here is everything you need to know

Amazon is reportedly planning to launch a separate app for Amazon Pay for grabbing more attention and increasing accessibility at a large scale.

Amazon Pay users may get a standalone app in near future. (Bloomberg)

Amazon is reportedly gearing up to launch a standalone app for Amazon Pay. According to a report by TechCrunch, the company's motive behind this is to increase the user base as well as provide easy accessibility to its payment services for a large number of users. 

Presently, the Amazon Pay services are blended in the main shopping app. The feature enables users to do multiple money transfer related activities as well as investments. The users can send or receive money and do travel bookings as well as purchase insurance and invest in assets like digital gold and mutual funds. 

Amazon likely to launch a new standalone Amazon Pay app

According to the TechCrunch report, Amazon has petitioned the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for making it possible. It added that several executives working in Amazon have noted that Amazon Pay is unable to attract the desired number of eyeballs when placed inside the shopping app. It is believed that they support the idea of a separate payments app for garnering more attention in the backdrop of India's competitive digital payments landscape. On the TechCrunch report suggesting rollout of a standalone Amazon Pay app, Amazon spokesperson said, "We don't comment on speculations."

Amazon Pay's position in India's digital payments landscape

According to CNBC, Amazon Pay reportedly ranks sixth in terms of popularity among all the payments apps registered on India's most used Unified Payment Interface payments network. Amazon Pay reportedly managed 72.4 million transactions, accounting to about 0.5 per cent of all the money transfers done using UPI. Other leading payments apps include Phone Pe that stood first with 6.9 billion transactions and Google Pay accounting for 5.3 billion transactions. 

As per the TechCrunch report, although Amazon is serious about developing and releasing a different Amazon Pay app, there is also a possibility that it may call off the plan completely. 

In July, Vikas Bansal, head of Amazon Pay India shared with Mint that the company wants to launch new payment methods where customers still pay in offline mode such as physical stores and shops. 

"We see opportunities in penetrating more deeply into offline (physical stores), different new ways of payment methods, and continue to invest in safety and security for controlling and lowering frauds. We continue to invest in UPI,” Bansal shared with Mint.