Amazon says 50 lakh SMBs now using Amazon Pay

Amazon Pay announced the launch of the ‘Amazon Pay For Business’ mobile app to simplify accepting digital payments for SMBs.

Amazon (REUTERS)

Amazon India on Friday announced that 50 lakh small and medium businesses are now using its payments platform, Amazon Pay.

Amazon India is hosting its annual summit Amazon Smbhav 2021 in India between April 15 and April 18. On the third day of the summit, the company today announced that over 50 lakh neighbourhood stores and businesses with its digital payments infrastructure. This includes more than 25 lakh retail and shopping outlets such as kirana stores, about 10 lakh operate food and beverage outlets such as restaurants and small eateries, over 5 lakh offer services such as salons, close to 4 lakh offer health and medical care shops. Amazon said that most of these SMBs, earlier transacted only in cash, and now they are accepting payments from their customers using Amazon Pay's QR Code.

The announcement was made by Amazon's Senior Vice President, Russell Grandinetti, in conversation with Nandan Nilekani during the session ‘innovating for a better India' at Amazon Smbhav earlier today.

In addition to this, Amazon Pay announced the launch of the ‘Amazon Pay For Business' mobile app to simplify accepting digital payments for SMBs. As of now, Amazon Pay for Business is available only on Android. It can be downloaded by businesses across from the Google Play Store. Amazon says that customers can use any UPI app to scan the Amazon QR code and make a payment to these businesses.

“The Amazon Pay For Business app will further catalyse this adoption and enable merchants to enter the digital payments ecosystem in minutes. We have built and scaled our digital payment acceptance for SMBs using UPI that is inarguably one of the world's biggest digital payments platform and look forward to creating more products that transform the way India pays,” Mahendra Nerurkar, CEO, Amazon Pay India said while making the announcement.

It is worth noting that the announcement comes shortly after Amazon India announced a $250 million venture fund to help digitise startups and small and medium businesses in India on the first day of Amazon Smbhav 2021. In addition to this, the company also announced its plans of digitising one million offline retailers and neighbourhood stores online, on the Amazon India marketplace by 2025 through its Local Shops on Amazon program.